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."Niemeyer, E.V. Revolution at Querétaro: The Mexican Constitutional Convention of 1916–1917. Austin: University of Texas Press 1974, 233.
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,Soberanes Fernández, José Luis, Mexico and the 1981 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief , pp. 437–438 nn. 7–8, BYU Law Review, June 2002 and attempts to enforce the articles strictly by President Plutarco Calles (1924–1928) 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of ejidos and end redistribution of land, and the articles restricting the Catholic Church in Mexico were largely repealed.Victor Gabriel Muro, "Catholic Church: Mexico" in Encyclopedia of Mexico vol. 1, p. 222. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997.
Constitution Day (Día de la Constitución) is one of Mexico's annual Fiestas Patrias (public holidays), 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:
A declaration of rights Sovereignty of the nation Separation of powers Representative government Federalism Constitutional remedy Supremacy of the State over the ChurchAvalos, Francisco, The Mexican Legal System , p. 5, W. S. Hein Publishing 2000
Organization
The Constitution is divided into "Titles" (Títulos) 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 (Capítulo I: de los Derechos Humanos y sus Garantías) Chapter II: On Mexicans (Capítulo II: de los Mexicanos) Chapter III, On Foreigners (Capítulo III: de los Extranjeros) Chapter IV: On Mexican Citizens (Capítulo IV: de los Ciudadanos Mexicanos)
Second Title: Chapter I: On National Sovereignty and Form of Government (Capítulo I, de la Soberanía Nacional y de la Forma de Gobierno) Chapter II: On the Parts That Make Up the Federation and the National Territory (Capítulo II, de las Partes Integrantes de la Federación y del Territorio Nacional)
Third Title: Chapter I: On the Separation of Powers (Capítulo I, de la División de Poderes) Chapter II: On the Legislative Power (Capítulo II, del Poder Legislativo) Chapter III: On the Executive Power (Capítulo III, del Poder Ejecutivo) Chapter IV: On the Judicial Power (Capítulo IV, del Poder Judicial)
Fourth Title: About the responsibilities of the public service and the patrimony of the State (De las responsabilidades de los servidores públicos y patrimonial del Estado)
Fifth Title: About the States of the Federation and the Federal District (De los estados de la Federación y del Distrito Federal)
Sixth Title: About Work and Social Welfare (Del Trabajo y la Previsión Social)
Seventh Title: General Provisions (Prevenciones Generales)
Eighth Title About Reforms to the Constitution (De las Reformas a la Constitución)
Ninth Title: About the Inviolability of the Constitution (De la Inviolabilidad de la Constitución)
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."Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. 2, p. 471.
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."Niemeyer, Revolution at Querétaro, 26. 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.Niemeyer, Revolution at Querétaro, 27.
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.Niemeyer, Revolution at Querétaro, 28-29.
Constitutional Convention
Carranza convoked a congress specifically to revise the liberal constitution of 1857, but the process created a more sweeping, new document.Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power. New York: Harper Collins 1997, 358 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.Charles C. Cumberland, Mexican Revolution: The Constitutionalist Years. Austin: University of Texas Press 1972, p. 328. 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.Niemeyer, Revolution at Querétaro, 33. 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.Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. 2, 472. 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 (all of which happened)." 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."Gilly, The Mexican Revolution, 236.
Delegates Delegates to the congress were to be elected, with one per jurisdiction that had existed in 1912,Cumberland, Mexican Revolution, p. 328 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.Cumberland, Mexican Revolution, p. 329. 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.