Constitution of Mexico


The current Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, Mexico, by a constituent convention during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constituent Congress on 5 February 1917, and was later amended several times. It is the successor to the Constitution of 1857, and earlier Mexican constitutions. "The Constitution of 1917 is the legal triumph of the Mexican Revolution. To some it is the revolution."
The current Constitution of 1917 is the first such document in the world to set out social rights, preceding the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Constitution of 1918 and the Weimar Constitution of 1919. Some of the most important provisions are Articles 3, 27, and 123; adopted in response to the armed insurrection of popular classes during the Mexican Revolution, these articles display profound changes in Mexican politics that helped frame the political and social backdrop for Mexico in the twentieth century. Article 3 established the basis for free, mandatory, and secular education; Article 27 laid the foundation for land reform in Mexico; and Article 123 was designed to empower the labor sector, which had emerged in the late nineteenth century and which supported the winning faction of the Mexican Revolution.
Articles 3, 5, 24, 27, and 130 seriously restricted the Catholic Church in Mexico, and attempts to enforce the articles strictly by President Plutarco Calles in 1926 led to the violent conflict known as the Cristero War.
In 1992, under the administration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, there were significant revisions of the constitution, modifying Article 27 to strengthen private property rights, allow privatization of ejidos and end redistribution of land, and the articles restricting the Catholic Church in Mexico were largely repealed.
Constitution Day is one of Mexico's annual Fiestas Patrias, commemorating the promulgation of the Constitution on 5 February 1917. The holiday is held on the first Monday of February.

Essential principles

The constitution was founded on seven fundamental ideals:
The Constitution is divided into "Titles" which are series of articles related to the same overall theme. The Titles, of variable length, are:
First Title:
  • Chapter I: Of Human Rights and their Guarantees
  • Chapter II: On Mexicans
  • Chapter III, On Foreigners
  • Chapter IV: On Mexican Citizens
Second Title:
Third Title:
  • Chapter I: On the Separation of Powers
  • Chapter II: On the Legislative Power
  • Chapter III: On the Executive Power
  • Chapter IV: On the Judicial Power
Fourth Title:
  • About the responsibilities of the public service and the patrimony of the State
Fifth Title:
  • About the States of the Federation and the Federal District
Sixth Title:
  • About Work and Social Welfare
Seventh Title:
  • General Provisions
Eighth Title
  • About Reforms to the Constitution
Ninth Title:
  • About the Inviolability of the Constitution

    History

Constitutionalists and the idea of a new constitution

The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States is one of the major outcomes of the Mexican Revolution that started in 1910 and won by the Constitutionalist faction led by Venustiano Carranza. Carranza's Constitutionalist coalition invoked the liberal 1857 Constitution to unite Mexicans against the regime of General Victoriano Huerta, who had come to power by a coup in February 1913. The revolutionaries fought for causes that were beyond the political bounds of the 1857 Constitution. Various political plans articulated demands for socio-economic reform. Carranza's Constitutionalist faction emerged victorious in 1915, having defeated Huerta's regime and then the bloody civil war between the revolutionary faction of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Historian Alan Knight contends that the new constitution was "a means to confer legitimacy on a shaky regime."
Carranza initially envisioned revisions to the 1857 Constitution that would incorporate the demands for which revolutionaries fought. Carranza's 1913 Plan of Guadalupe and its subsequent updates did not include demands for a new constitution, but his advisors persuaded him that the best way forward was a new constitution rather than a piecemeal revision of the earlier Constitution. He had initially floated the idea of a constitutional convention in September 1913, but had not pursued the idea in the thick of revolutionary struggle, but once he had consolidated power, he formally and publicly articulated the idea. Writing in February 1915, he stated "When peace is established, I shall convoke a Congress duly elected by all people which shall have the character of a congreso constituyente for raising constitutional precepts the reforms dictated during the struggle." persuaded Carranza that a new constitution was the best way to return to rule of law, through a new governing document. Carranza agreed, allowing Palavicini to launch a press campaign to win over Mexicans, and especially the revolutionary army generals, to the idea.
Palavicini argued that incorporating revolutionary reforms into a new constitution would give them firm standing in the present and future that could be overturned easily. Once a new legislature was convened, legislators could more effect reforms efficiently since they were part of the constitution already. The Constitution of 1857 had subordinated the executive branch to the legislative, in an attempt to curtail the power of strong presidents. The liberal general Porfirio Díaz when president for more than three decades made the legislature and the courts subordinate to his executive power while the Constitution of 1857 remained in effect in theory, but not in practice. Palavicini argued that the process of amending the constitution would be time-consuming and piecemeal. Since the multiple major revolutionary reforms were not part of the 1857 Constitution, adding them would entail further complexity. A new constitution drafted by elected delegates would give legitimacy to the new charter, arguing for a constituent congress. Although there was some resistance to the idea, the revolutionaries recognized the "right of revolution", that having won the conflict, the victors could have their way in creating the new document.

Constitutional Convention

Carranza convoked a congress specifically to revise the liberal constitution of 1857, but the process created a more sweeping, new document. The Constitution was drafted in Querétaro, not the capital. Carranza chose the site because it was where Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was executed, bringing to an end the Second French Intervention in 1867. Another view is that Mexico City was too conservative and Carranza chose the provincial capital of Querétaro because it was a quiet, peaceful place for such an important meeting. The congress formally opened in November 1916, with delegate elections and then a credentials fight preceding that; the final draft was approved on 5 February 1917.
Unlike the earlier congresses that produced the 1824 Mexican Constitution and the 1857 Constitution over a lengthy period, the Constituent Congress produced the final draft in a matter of a few months, between November 1916 and February 1917. According to Alan Knight, the immediacy with which the document was drafted and Carranza's acceptance of some radical provisions "suggests that what Carranza and his colleagues chiefly wanted was a Constitution, the hypothetical contents of which could be later reviewed, rewritten and ignored." Another factor may have been that the forces of General Pancho Villa remained an active threat to the Constitutionalist regime. In December 1916, Villa captured the important city of Torreón, which historian Adolfo Gilly contends "revealed the still-hot embers of peasant war and mass discontent with the whole reactionary policy followed by Carranza in 1916."

Delegates

Delegates to the congress were to be elected, with one per jurisdiction that had existed in 1912, when congressional elections had been held during the Francisco I. Madero presidency. Those who had been "hostile to the Constitutionalist Cause" were banned from participating, but voting was by universal manhood suffrage. Carranza was pressured to amnesty those who had been hostile as well as allow those who had gone into exile to return to Mexico, but he refused. Carranza excluded the villista and zapatista factions from this congress; however, the demands, and political pressure, of these factions pushed the delegates to adopt social demands not originally in Carranza's plan –i.e. articles 27 and 123 that spoke to the demands of peasants and workers who had fought for their rights.
The membership of the Congress was not representative of all regions, classes, or political stripes in Mexico. The 220 delegates were all Carrancistas, since the Constitutionalist faction had been victorious militarily; but that did not mean they were of one mind. Most delegates were middle class, not workers or peasants. Middle class professionals predominated, with lawyers, teachers, engineers, doctors, and journalists. A small but significant group of delegates were revolutionary generals, including Francisco José Múgica and Candido Aguilar, Carranza's son-in-law. The predominantly civilian composition of the Constituent Congress was in contrast with the place of real power in revolutionary Mexico, which was in the military. Most senior generals did not participate directly in the congress. An exception was Álvaro Obregón backing the progressive faction, although indirectly. "Of the members of the high command, it was Obregón who best understood that military victory had to be consolidated through major concessions to crucial revolutionary forces." Historian of the Querétaro convention, E.V. Niemeyer, compiled a roster of delegates, with the names of delegates and information on the age, state from which delegates were elected, and their occupation, profession, or military rank. Villa's home state of Chihuahua had only one delegate., while Morelos, Zapata's home state, had two. Enrique Krauze, in his book Biography of Power, states the Constituent Congress contained 85 conservatives and centrists close to Carranza's brand of liberalism, and 132 more radical delegates.
An important group of delegates elected to the congress were the "Bloc Renovador", who had been elected in 1912 to the Mexican legislature during Madero's presidency. Some considered them tainted for their continuing to serve during Victoriano Huerta's regime. Although some had voted to accept Madero's forced resignation from the presidency, in a failed move to save his life, this group had blocked Huerta's moves in the legislature to the point that in October 1913 Huerta dissolved congress and ruled as a dictator. Some congressmen fled Mexico, others were jailed by Huerta. With the Constitutionalist victory, some Renovadores, namely Alfonso Cravioto, José Natividad Macías, Félix F. Palavicini, and Luis Manuel Rojas, were now ready to serve in the Constituent Congress to draft the new constitution. There was opposition to them from other Carrancistas for their history of serving in the Huerta regime and those opponents attempted to block their being seated as delegates. Carranza supported the Renovadores, saying he had instructed them to continue serving in Congress during the Huerta regime as a way to gather information about the regime and to block its attempts to act constitutionally. At the Constituent Congress, there were bitter fights over the seating of particular delegates, so that the division between the Renovadores and a more radical group of leftists was sharp even before the congress actually opened. The most bitter fight was over the seating of Palavicini, which was finally settled in a closed session. Carranza's foreign minister and son-in-law, revolutionary General Cándido Aguilar, brought the matter to conclusion by saying that the Constituent Congress was losing time with the debate of Palavincini, while Villa remained strong in Chihuahua and the United States might intervene in Mexico to oppose the new constitution.