Accountability, Transparency, and Responsibility Within the Scope of the Energy Reform in Mexico
Table of Contents
Author(s)
Ana Elena Fierro
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)To access the full paper, download the PDF on the left-hand sidebar.
Introduction
The energy reform represents a transformation in the understanding of the Mexican state and its role in the economic development of the country. This is a change comparable to the commercial opening that resulted from the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and it poses similar challenges related to the modernization of the nationalized industry, the guarantee of international standards of effectiveness, quality assurance of supply, and the protection of the environment.
It is also important to recognize that the energy reform is taking place in a Mexico that has managed to consolidate its democracy through the alternance of power and reliable elections, although there is still work to be done to ensure unconditional respect of the rule of law. It is still necessary to reinforce mechanisms that make it possible to be aware of government activity, demand accountability for its actions, and fight corruption. Furthermore, in the hydrocarbons sector, some old union-based practices need to be discarded that have created procedures that are hardly efficient and result in abuses of power. These elements are essential to achieving the modernization and development established as the goals of the energy reform.
Throughout the 21st century, constitutional and legal reforms have been carried out to strengthen public information access and accountability, which represents significant progress. Examples of this progress are the addition of the employer’s liability clause to Article 109 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States (CPEUM) in 2002; the constitutional and legal changes of the so-called tax reform of 2008 aimed at consolidating budgeting for results; reforms in human rights affairs and writs of amparo in 2011; and the reforms of Article 6 in 2007 and 2013 aimed at strengthening the policy of transparency and providing the guaranteeing bodies with constitutional autonomy.
Nonetheless, as has been demonstrated by the Accountability Network’s assessment, these mechanisms suffer from significant fragmentation (López, Merino, and Morales 2011), perhaps because their implementation has not yet been completed. Likewise, it should be noted that the weakest point of these procedures for the oversight of public work is still the responsibility structure. Although in 2015 there was a constitutional reform that sought to create a national anticorruption system, it is clear that currently there is no comprehensive and efficient regulation in this matter. Today, these reforms have become urgent in light of the credibility crisis suffered by the government that has caused deterioration in the president’s public image. He is no longer considered to be a great negotiator who, through the Pact for Mexico, succeeded in carrying out one of the most important economic reforms of the Mexican state; now, he is perceived as the head of a corrupt government whose conflicts of interest appear in the newspapers on a daily basis. This has caused a crisis of trust in all areas of government, which, without a doubt, has had negative effects on the consolidation of the energy reform.
Therefore, it has become necessary to analyze the regulation of procedures for the overseeing of authorities, the evaluation of the results of their actions, and, in cases of corruption, the mechanisms used to apply the respective sanctions in such a manner that all participants can be certain that the actions of the Mexican state comply with the law. To this end, this paper explores the constitutional and legal standards regarding these oversight systems within the scope of the energy reform. We will start with an analysis of these regulatory structures through the identification of their areas of validity and the determination of their subject matters, subjects, procedures, and sanctions. We will also analyze whether these procedures are adequate in satisfying the constitutional principles that the energy reform establishes as the guidelines for activity in this sector. Once we have delineated the systems of transparency, accountability, and responsibility, we will identify some of the challenges and areas of opportunity presented by the legislation in light of both the constitutional principles and the major international practices in this area.
It should be clarified that this work focuses on the analysis of the state’s governing bodies and public officials with respect to their obligations regarding transparency, accountability, and responsibility and does not address the problem of the necessary regulation of publicity or the oversight of the activities of the different market agents that will participate in the energy sector. Although it is of utmost importance to regulate the activity of these agents, because they are individuals their duties of transparency, their brand of accountability, and even their possible acts of corruption are guided by a peculiar logic and are mainly regulated not by the traditional bodies that control power within the government, but rather by other regulating bodies that were created for such a purpose.
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