Senate suspended sessions due to coronavirus: joined the Chamber of Deputies and the Judiciary

After an agreement of the Political Coordination Board (Jucopo), legislators voted to suspend all deadlines and pending procedures in the legislative body until further notice, to comply with the sanitary measures adopted by the country due to the start of phase 2 of the epidemic.

The plenary session of the Upper House also approved the appointment of a Permanent Commission, in case it cannot meet in session before April 30, when the ordinary period ends. In that case, it will be said Commission the one that assumes during the recess of work and until an extraordinary period is agreed to unburden all the pending.

“The session is adjourned and, if necessary, another will be called in due course. If there are no conditions to hold another session, the presidency may close the current second period of ordinary sessions through a publication in the Gazette of the Senate ”, informed the president of the Upper House, Mónica Fernández.

In addition, Jucopo and the Board of Directors “design and propose a constitutional, legal and regulatory reform for the use of technological tools in the commissioning and virtual sessions”, And its possible implementation during the present contingency will be evaluated.

Prior to this, Ricardo Monreal, coordinator of Morena, the party of the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and with the majority in both Houses, he had advanced hours before this Tuesday that “today could be the last session”.

Despite the fact that he had shown his refusal to suspend the sessions, the opposition PAN (National Action Party) assured that they managed to keep the Senate “working through its governing bodies”, and to be able to be summoned to attend to the fulfillment of the functions conferred by the Mexican people.

The PANists at all costs sought to keep the sessions, reversing their position from last week, and they proposed to go ahead but remotely. “The call is that they are not stupid, the technological elements allow us to meet,” said Senator Damián Zepeda.

“In the Constitution It does not say that we must be physically present, it speaks of presence and concurrency, but it can be virtual“Added the PAN. “The legal interpretation that we have is that it can be done remotely,” added Mauricio Kuri, the coordinator of the PAN legislators in the Senate.

Unanimously, the reform to the General Health Law was also approved so that breast reconstruction is considered a basic health service and later the creation of the Federal Law for the Promotion and Protection of Native Maize was approved.

Likewise, the integration of the special Commission for monitoring the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, United States and Canada (T-MEC) was also approved, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).