## Facts

- In the mid-1990s, members of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) negotiated with Mexico’s federal executive branch over constitutional recognition of indigenous rights and culture.
- The negotiations nearly produced an agreement that served as the basis for a proposed constitutional-amendment initiative.
- In 1996, talks broke down; the agreement was not finalized, and the federal executive branch rejected the proposed initiative at that time.
- About four years later, the President sent an initiative on indigenous rights and culture to the Senate.
- The Senate modified the initiative and approved its own bill addressing indigenous rights and culture.
- Despite protests from the Zapatistas, Congress tallied the state legislatures’ votes and announced the “Constitutional Amendments on Indigenous Matters,” which took effect in 2001.
- The Municipality of Yecapixtla, State of Morelos filed a constitutional controversy (controversia constitucional) with the Supreme Court’s Records and Correspondence Department.
- Yecapixtla sought invalidation of the constitutional amendments and named as defendants federal organs (including Congress, Congress’s Permanent Commission, and the federal executive branch) and the participating state legislatures.
- The municipality alleged (i) violations of the constitutional amendment procedure, including improper voting practices, and (ii) infringement of indigenous peoples’ rights.
- A central complaint was that the government denied indigenous peoples due process by not consulting indigenous communities about the constitutional amendments.

## Issues

1. Whether a municipality may use a constitutional controversy to seek judicial invalidation of federal constitutional amendments based on alleged procedural defects in the amendment process.
2. Whether a municipality has standing in a constitutional controversy to assert alleged violations of indigenous peoples’ rights (including a claimed lack of consultation) as a basis to set aside constitutional amendments.
3. Whether the validity of constitutional amendments depends on prior consultation with indigenous peoples as a judicially enforceable condition in this kind of proceeding.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court rejected Yecapixtla’s attempt to invalidate the 2001 “Constitutional Amendments on Indigenous Matters” through Constitutional Controversy 361/2001.
- The amendments remained in force; the Court did not order annulment or suspension of the constitutional reform.
- The Court treated the constitutional controversy mechanism as limited to disputes over governmental competences, not as a tool for a municipality to obtain review and nullification of constitutional amendments on behalf of affected social groups.
- The Court did not accept the asserted failure to consult indigenous peoples as a ground, in this municipality-filed controversy, to invalidate the constitutional amendments.

## Legal Principles

- A constitutional controversy is designed to address conflicts between governmental bodies over constitutional authority; it requires a concrete impact on the claimant entity’s own constitutional powers.
- A municipality generally may not invoke a constitutional controversy to litigate alleged violations of third-party rights (such as indigenous peoples’ rights) as a basis to strike down federal constitutional amendments.
- When the Constitution sets out a formal amendment process (including legislative supermajorities and state-legislature approval), the Supreme Court will not treat additional steps—such as consultation— as validity requirements in this procedural posture absent a clear constitutional command.
- Challenges to the internal voting and tallying steps of the constitutional amendment process, brought by a municipality through a constitutional controversy, do not provide a basis to nullify a duly proclaimed constitutional amendment.

## Conclusion

In Contr. Const. 361/2001 (2002), the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation declined to invalidate Mexico’s 2001 indigenous-rights constitutional amendments at the request of the Municipality of Yecapixtla, holding in effect that a municipality could not use a constitutional controversy to obtain judicial nullification of constitutional amendments based on alleged procedural flaws and alleged violations of indigenous peoples’ rights, including the asserted absence of prior consultation.


Municipality of Yecapixtla, State of Morelos v. Congress of the Union et al., Contr. Const. 361/2001 (2002)