On February 8, the nation’s Supreme Court of Justice issued a decision affecting the answer to the question posed in the title of this collaboration, on which scholars of the subject differed. The question to be resolved centers on determining whether or not the republic’s state is authorized to impose a measure such as the use of face masks on a mandatory basis. The court decided by 8 votes that the provision of Section 129bis of the State Health Code of the State of Nuevo Leon is in effect, which establishes the power of the local health authority to declare the use of a face mask mandatory during the time when it remains a health emergency caused by an infectious disease. In a commendable recent communication exercise, Minister President Arturo Zaldivar released a video on YouTube explaining the importance of this sentence in relation to protecting people’s health. In his speech analyzing the draft resolution, Minister Zaldivar clarified that “Although the Public Health Council and the Ministry of Health have constitutional powers to deal with health emergencies, it does not follow the procedures of the federal authorities related to health. Emergency care is limited to activities assigned to them by the Ministry of Health. Especially if these emergencies are caused by an infectious disease.
A very important aspect of what has been resolved by our Supreme Court relates to the theory of concurrence of legislative powers, since it opens the door for it to consider that as long as there are no specific provisions for the regulation of certain aspects by the federal power, the states can cover the corresponding gap by exercising the powers they possess. This was explained in the judicial decision by noting that as long as the federal authority does not issue a specific regulation on the use of face masks, state governments can adopt additional measures.
And from another angle, the prime minister said: “This is logical, if we consider that the local authorities are the most suitable for determining the needs of each federal entity.” This combination of aspects gives us the key to support the thesis that within our federal system there is an ideal space for asserting the sovereign character of the states, despite objections formulated by orthodoxy dominated by the notions of writers immersed in academia. the environment of the capital, according to which sovereignty can be ascribed only to the Federation as a whole so long as the parts of which it is composed have not exercised their sovereignty; That two sovereignty cannot coexist and that the margin of internal decision of the states is conditioned by the terms of the federal agreement.
However, there are reasons to assert that the use of the adjective ‘sovereign’ – as it appears in the Constitution – applied to every state, based on historical, theoretical and practical evidence, is neither idle nor wrong.
In particular, it has been pointed out that the origin of our federation does not in fact correspond to the pre-existence of sovereign states as occurred in the United States, and therefore this former sovereignty should not be recognized. Even if we suppose that it was, and this is also not accurate, the mismatch of a basic theoretical concept with practical reality does not detract from the value of the dogmatic declaration, nor does it detract from its validity as a supporting principle of constitutional order but also, in the uncertain conditions of the beginning of our independent life, was produced Genuine divisions in parts of the territory belonging to the Spanish crown in the area that is now Mexico. In fact, Jalisco, Yucatan, and Oaxaca declared themselves openly independent. Zacatecas and Queretaro behaved in practice this way.
Therefore, at least in part, from a historical point of view, the assertion that the states that formed the Mexican Confederation were not originally sovereign is wrong, since in theory it should have been because at the moment the Confederation was formed he enters from it Shows a sovereign will. The declaration by a political entity of its sovereignty, whatever the moment it asserts its sovereignty, sets a precedent, of political and legal logic, necessary for the formation of a federation, and this was achieved in the Mexican case. Assuming without compromise, that the founders of our federal system, in 1824, admitted that the states they represented did not have political independence at that time, they resorted to the legal delusion of granting them such independence. (Keep going forward).
