On June 26th, 2025, the Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico (SCJN) issued press release 183/2025 stating that the reforms made in 2023 to the Mining Law, National Water Law, General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection, and General Law for the Prevention and Comprehensive Management of Waste, in matters of mining and water concessions, are constitutional.
This was because the SCJN overturned a Federal Judge’s ruling that had granted a constitutional injunction to a mining company against the reforms in question. This injunction had been granted mainly because the judge considered that the legislative process that led to the reforms was flawed and, therefore, there were several violations within that process.
However, the SCJN, in overturning the Federal Judge’s ruling, argued that such violations of the legislative process cannot be challenged through such constitutional injunction by private individuals, in this case mining companies, and therefore dismissed such arguments.
Notwithstanding the above, it should be noted that the SCJN has yet to rule on the Action of Unconstitutionality brought by various political parties (which are not considered private individuals) and in which the main argument was the same violations of the legislative procedure of the reforms in question.
It is therefore possible for political parties to use this type of defense (unconstitutionality actions) to argue against the legislative procedure of a law. Therefore, we must wait for the SCJN to resolve Unconstitutionality Action 129/2023, correctly analyzing the arguments against that legislative process, without being able to argue that this route is not the appropriate one to attack such violations.
Let us remember that the SCJN itself ordered the Collegiate Circuit Courts to postpone the resolution of this type of matter until the Supreme Court itself established a uniform criterion, which would be until unconstitutionality action 129/2023, as well as constitutional controversy 86/2024, and the amparo appeals under review 337/2024, 379/2024, 391/2024, 422/2024, 465/2024, 466/2024, 476/2024, 571/2024, and 583/2024.
In this regard, the press release under review refers only to one of these appeals under review, specifically 391/2024; however, as the SCJN itself determined, the postponement ordered to the Collegiate Courts will continue until all the defenses cited in the preceding paragraph are resolved by the Court itself.
