Judiciary stops AMLO’s anti-smoking order in 17 states

México City.- Federal judges in México City and 17 other states in the country are required to suspend the presidential order to eliminate smoking areas in restaurants, as well as the display of cigars in the shops.

The Regional Plenary on Administrative Matters of the North Central Region, made up of two magistrates and a Circuit magistrate, approved jurisprudence that orders the granting of suspensions against the two most controversial points of the reform to the Regulation of the General Law for Tobacco Control (LGCT) which entered into force on January 15.

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The Regional Plenary resolved two contradictions in criteria between collegiate courts in its session on May 25, and the jurisprudence will be mandatory as soon as it is published in the Federal Judicial Weekly, probably next Friday.

Said jurisprudence obliges all judges who hear new protections for restaurants, bars, grocery stores, supermarkets and other commercial chains.and that challenge the prohibitions imposed by the executive in the Regulations.

Until now, District courts and collegiate courts have had conflicting criteria about suspending these restrictions.

Those who have denied them consider that these are measures that seek to protect health and, therefore, the public interest must prevail over that of the businesses affected, and maintain the restrictions while the trials are being processed to clarify whether the regulation is unconstitutional.

But those who granted suspensions, and now the Regional Plenary, maintain that it is evident that the executive exceeded what was provided for in the LGCT which Congress reformed in 2022 without contemplating these prohibitions.

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“The people requesting the measure attended the trial as holders of the rights that assisted them for having complied with the previous regulation, which already preserved people’s health from the harmful effects of tobacco, and the new measures affect not only them but also those who went to the establishments with the possibility of smoking, so that the lack of suitability of the measures could arise, as well as the transgression of the principles of economic competition and free competition”affirmed the Plenary, on the elimination of smoking areas where food can be served.

“There are no objective elements that allow us to affirm that the execution of the measures implemented by the claimed norms is urgent, considering that the pre-existing regulation contains numerous restrictions aimed at preserving the health of people and specifically of children against the harmful consequences associated with tobacco products and, on the other hand, it is possible to assert that its execution could cause affectation and serious interferences to the economic freedoms of the complainants and to the rights of the consumers”he added, about the ban on displaying cigarettes.

The judges’ decision Rosa Elena González Tirado and Adriana Campuzano and his colleague Gaspar Paulinis final, and will only be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Justice if a contradiction is presented with the Plenary of the South Central Region or a collegiate court of the fourteen states of said region.

Where does the jurisprudence apply?

México City

México state

New Lion

sonorous

San Luis Potosi

Coahuila

Sinaloa

lower california

Guanajuato

Chihuahua

Queretaro

Tamaulipas

zacatecas

Nayarit

Baja California Sur

Durango

Tlaxcala

aguascalientes

With information from Reform