Article 122 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States

Mexico City is a state (federal entity) that enjoys autonomy in everything concerning its internal regime and its political and administrative organization.

A.The government of Mexico City is in charge of its local powers, in the terms established in the Political Constitution of Mexico City (Constitución Política de la Ciudad de México), which shall conform to the provisions of this Constitution and to the following bases:

I.Mexico City shall adopt for its internal regime the republican, representative, democratic and secular form of government. The public power of Mexico City shall be divided for its exercise into Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Two or more of these powers may not be gathered in a single person or corporation, nor may the Legislative be vested in a single individual.

The Political Constitution of Mexico City shall establish the rules and the guarantees for the enjoyment and the protection of human rights in the areas of its competence, in accordance with the provisions of Article 1o. of this Constitution.

II.The exercise of the Legislative Power is vested in the Legislature of Mexico City, which shall be integrated in the terms established by the Political Constitution of the entity. Its members must meet the requirements that it establishes and shall be elected by universal, free, secret and direct suffrage, according to the principles of relative majority and proportional representation, for a period of three years. In no case may a person participate in the election of a deputyship who has or has had in the last three years prior to the day of the election a bond of marriage or concubinage or de facto union, or of kinship by consanguinity or civil in the direct line without limitation of degree and in the collateral line up to the fourth degree or by affinity up to the second degree, with the person who is holding the deputyship.

In no case may a political party have a number of deputies by both principles that represent a percentage of the total of the Legislature that exceeds by eight points its percentage of votes cast. This base shall not apply to a political party that by its victories in single-member districts obtains a percentage of seats of the total of the Legislature higher than the sum of the percentage of its votes cast plus eight percent. Likewise, in the integration of the Legislature, the percentage of representation of a political party may not be less than the percentage of votes that it received minus eight percentage points.

The Political Constitution of Mexico City shall establish that the persons who are deputies to the Legislature may not be reelected for the period immediately following the exercise of their mandate. Alternate deputies may be elected for the immediately following period in the capacity of principal, provided that they have not been in office, but principal deputies may not be elected for the immediately following period in the capacity of alternates.

The Political Constitution of the entity shall establish the rules to guarantee the access of all parliamentary groups to the governing bodies of the local Congress and, for those with the greatest representation, to the Presidency of the same.

It corresponds to the Legislature to approve the additions or amendments to the Political Constitution of Mexico City and to exercise the powers that it establishes. For the additions or amendments to become part of it, it is required that they be approved by two thirds of the deputies present.

Likewise, it corresponds to the Legislature of Mexico City to review the public account of the preceding year, through its audit entity, which shall be a body with technical and management autonomy in the exercise of its attributions, and to decide on its internal organization, operation and resolutions, in the terms provided by its law. The audit function shall be carried out in accordance with the principles of legality, impartiality and reliability.

The public account of the preceding year must be sent to the Legislature no later than 30 April of the following year. This deadline may only be extended when a request from the Head of Government of Mexico City, sufficiently justified in the judgment of the Legislature, is made.

The audit reports of the audit entity of Mexico City shall be public in nature.

The head of the audit entity of Mexico City shall be elected by two thirds of the members present of the Legislature for a period of no less than seven years and must have five years of experience in matters of control, financial audit and responsibilities.

III.The person who is the head of the Executive Power shall be called Head of Government of Mexico City (Jefa or Jefe de Gobierno) and shall have in his charge the public administration of the entity; shall be elected by universal, free, secret and direct vote, may not hold office for more than six years and his mandate may be revoked. Whoever has held the headship of the local Executive, designated or elected, in no case and for no reason may again hold that office, nor in the capacity of interim, provisional, substitute or officer in charge of the office. Nor may a person participate in the election of this office who has or has had in the last three years prior to the day of the election a bond of marriage or concubinage or de facto union, or of kinship by consanguinity or civil in the direct line without limitation of degree and in the collateral line up to the fourth degree or by affinity up to the second degree, with the person who is holding the headship of the Executive Power.

The Political Constitution of Mexico City shall establish the powers of the Head of Government and the requirements that whoever aspires to hold that office must meet.

The Political Constitution of Mexico City shall establish the rules relating to the process for the revocation of mandate of the Head of Government.

IV.The exercise of the Judicial Power is vested in the Superior Court of Justice (Tribunal Superior de Justicia), the local Judicial Discipline Tribunal (Tribunal de Disciplina Judicial), the judicial administration body and the courts and tribunals that the Political Constitution of Mexico City establishes, which shall guarantee the independence of the magistrates and judges in the exercise of their functions. The local laws shall establish the conditions for their election by free, direct and secret vote of the citizenry, subjecting themselves strictly to the bases, stages, procedures, terms, modalities, requirements, duration of the offices and other provisions that this Constitution sets forth for the Federal Judiciary in all that is applicable, including by way of enumeration:

a)The establishment of public, open, transparent, inclusive, accessible and parity-based mechanisms of evaluation and selection that guarantee the participation of all interested persons;

b)The integration by each power of Mexico City of Evaluation Committees (Comités de Evaluación) that, through standardized criteria and methodologies of evaluation and selection, verify compliance with the constitutional and legal requirements of the participating persons and select the four best evaluated persons for each office who have the technical knowledge necessary for the performance of the office and have distinguished themselves for their honesty, good public reputation, competence and academic and professional background in the exercise of legal activity;

c)The purification by each Evaluation Committee of the list of the best evaluated persons by public drawing of lots, as well as the nomination by each power of Mexico City of two candidacies for each specialty subject to election, observing gender parity, and

d)The evaluation of the performance of the judging persons who are elected during their first year of exercise, as well as their training and permanent updating by the Judicial Discipline Tribunal of Mexico City.

The laws shall also establish the conditions for the operation of administration and discipline bodies with technical and management independence and to issue their resolutions, in accordance with the bases established in this Constitution for the Federal Judiciary, as well as for the entry, training, permanence and specialization of those who integrate the Judicial Power.

The magistrates who are members of the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City must meet at minimum the requirements established in sections I to V of Article 95 of this Constitution. The persons who have held in the Government of Mexico City the office of Secretary or equivalent or of Attorney General of Justice, or of member of the local Legislative Power, during the year prior to the day of the designation, may not be magistrates.

The magistrates and the judges shall hold their office for nine years; they may be reelected and, if they are, they may only be deprived of their positions in the terms established by this Constitution, as well as by the Constitution and the laws of Mexico City. The magistrates and the judges shall receive an adequate and irrevocable remuneration, which may not be greater than that established for the person who is the head of the Presidency of the Republic in the corresponding budget and shall not be diminished during their office. In the area of the Judicial Power, funds, trusts, mandates or analogous contracts that are not provided for in the law may not be created nor maintained in operation.

V.The Public Administration of Mexico City shall be centralized and parastatal. The public treasury of the City and its administration shall be unitary, including the tables of remunerations and emoluments of public officials. The patrimonial regime of the Centralized Public Administration shall also have a unitary character.

The public treasury of Mexico City shall be organized in accordance with criteria of budgetary and financial unity.

It corresponds to the Legislature to approve annually the corresponding budget of expenditures. In setting forth the remunerations of public officials, they must conform to the bases provided in Article 127 of this Constitution.

The Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers, as well as the bodies with constitutional autonomy, must include within their budget projects the itemized tables of the remunerations that their public officials are proposed to receive. These proposals must observe the procedure that the Political Constitution of Mexico City and the local laws establish for the approval of the budget of expenditures.

The federal laws shall not limit the power of Mexico City to establish the contributions on real property, its subdivision, division, consolidation, transfer and improvement, as well as those that have as their base the change in value of the real property and those derived from the provision of public services in its charge, nor shall they grant exemptions in relation to the same. The laws of Mexico City shall not establish exemptions or subsidies in favor of any person or institution with respect to said contributions. Only the property of the public domain of the Federation, of the states (federal entities) or of the Municipalities shall be exempt, unless such property is used by parastatal entities or by private individuals, under any title, for purposes different from those of their public object.

It corresponds to the Head of Government of Mexico City to propose to the local Legislative Power the fees and rates applicable to taxes, duties, contributions for improvements and the tables of unit values of land and constructions that serve as the base for the collection of the contributions on real property.

VI.The territorial division of Mexico City for purposes of its political and administrative organization, as well as the number, the denomination and the limits of its territorial demarcations, shall be defined in accordance with the provisions of the local Political Constitution.

The government of the territorial demarcations of Mexico City shall be in charge of the Mayorships (Alcaldías). Subject to the revenue projections of the public treasury of Mexico City, the Legislature shall approve the budget of the Mayorships, which shall exercise it autonomously in the cases and terms established by the local Political Constitution.

The integration, administrative organization and powers of the Mayorships shall be established in the Political Constitution and local laws, which shall be subject to the following principles:

a)The Mayorships are political and administrative bodies that are integrated by a Mayor and by a Council elected by universal, free, secret and direct vote, for a period of three years. The members of the Mayorship shall be elected by slates of between seven and ten candidates, as applicable, ordered progressively, beginning with the candidate for Mayor and then the Council members with their respective alternates, in the number that the Political Constitution of Mexico City determines for each territorial demarcation. In no case may the number of Council members be less than ten nor greater than fifteen. The members of the Councils shall be elected according to the principles of relative majority and proportional representation, in the proportion of sixty percent by the first principle and forty percent by the second. No political party or electoral coalition may have more than sixty percent of the council members.

b)The Political Constitution of Mexico City must establish the prohibition of consecutive reelection for the same office of persons who are Mayors and Council members. The functionaries mentioned above, when they have the capacity of principal, may not be elected for the immediately following period in the capacity of alternates, but those who have the capacity of alternates may be elected for the immediately following period as principals unless they have been in office.

c)The public administration of the territorial demarcations corresponds to the Mayors.

The Political Constitution of Mexico City shall establish the competence of the Mayorships, within their respective jurisdictions.

Subject to the revenue projections of the public treasury of Mexico City, it shall correspond to the Councils of the Mayorships to approve the draft budget of expenditures of their demarcations, which they shall send to the local Executive for its integration into the draft budget of Mexico City to be forwarded to the Legislature. Likewise, they shall be empowered to supervise and evaluate the actions of government, and to control the exercise of public spending in the respective territorial demarcation.

When approving the draft budget of expenditures, the Councils of the Mayorships must guarantee the operating expenditure of the territorial demarcation and adjust their current expenditure to the rules and maximum amounts, as well as to the itemized tables of remunerations of public officials that the Legislature previously establishes, subjecting themselves to the provisions of Article 127 of this Constitution.

d)The Political Constitution of Mexico City shall establish the bases so that the corresponding law provides for the criteria or formulas for the allocation of the budget of the territorial demarcations, which shall be composed, at least, of the amounts that in accordance with the law correspond to them by concept of federal participations, local taxes collected by the treasury of Mexico City and revenues derived from the provision of services in their charge.

e)The territorial demarcations may not, in any case, contract directly or indirectly obligations or loans.

f)The persons who are Mayors and Council members must meet the requirements established by the Political Constitution of Mexico City. In no case may a person participate in the election of these offices who has or has had in the last three years prior to the day of the election a bond of marriage or concubinage or de facto union, or of kinship by consanguinity or civil in the direct line without limitation of degree and in the collateral line up to the fourth degree or by affinity up to the second degree, with the person who is holding the headship of the office for which he is a candidate.

VII.Mexico City shall have the autonomous constitutional bodies that this Constitution provides for the states (federal entities).

VIII.The Political Constitution of Mexico City shall establish the rules for the organization and operation, as well as the powers of the Court of Administrative Justice (Tribunal de Justicia Administrativa), endowed with full autonomy to issue its rulings and establish its organization, operation, procedures and, where applicable, remedies against its resolutions.

The Court shall have in its charge to settle the controversies that arise between the local Public Administration and private individuals; impose, in the terms provided by the law, the sanctions on public officials for serious administrative responsibility and on private individuals who incur in acts linked to serious administrative faults; as well as to charge the responsible parties the payment of the compensation (indemnity) and pecuniary sanctions that derive from the damages and losses that affect the Public Treasury of Mexico City or the patrimony of its public entities.

The law shall establish the rules to guarantee the transparency of the process of appointment of its magistrates.

The investigation, substantiation and sanction of the administrative responsibilities of the members of the Superior Court of Justice shall correspond to the local Judicial Discipline Tribunal, without prejudice to the attributions of the audit entity over the handling, custody and application of public resources.

IX.The Constitution and the laws of Mexico City must conform to the rules that in electoral matters establishes section IV of Article 116 of this Constitution and the corresponding general laws.

X.The local Political Constitution shall guarantee that the functions of administration of justice in Mexico City are carried out based on the principles of autonomy, efficiency, impartiality, legality, objectivity, professionalism, responsibility, gender perspective and respect for human rights.

XI.The employment relationships between Mexico City and its employees shall be governed by the law enacted by the local Legislature, based on the provisions of Article 123 of this Constitution and its regulatory laws.

B.The federal powers shall have with respect to Mexico City exclusively the powers that this Constitution expressly confers on them.

The Government of Mexico City, given its character as Capital of the United Mexican States and seat of the Powers of the Union, shall guarantee, at all times and in the terms of this article, the necessary conditions for the exercise of the constitutional powers of the federal powers.

The Congress of the Union shall enact the laws that establish the bases for the coordination between the federal powers and the local powers of Mexico City by virtue of its character as Capital of the United Mexican States, which shall contain the necessary provisions that ensure the conditions for the exercise of the powers that this Constitution confers on the Powers of the Union.

The Chamber of Deputies, when ruling on the draft Budget of Expenditures of the Federation, shall analyze and determine the resources required to support Mexico City in its character as Capital of the United Mexican States and the bases for their exercise.

It corresponds to the Head of Government of Mexico City to direct the institutions of public security of the entity, in the terms established by the Political Constitution of Mexico City and the local laws, as well as to freely appoint and remove the public official who exercises direct command of the public force.

In Mexico City, with respect to the President of the United Mexican States, the provisions of the second paragraph of section VII of Article 115 of this Constitution shall be applicable. The Federal Executive may remove the public official who exercises direct command of the public force referred to in the preceding paragraph, for serious causes determined by the law that the Congress of the Union enacts in the terms of this Base.

The real property of the Federation located in Mexico City shall be exclusively under the jurisdiction of the federal powers.

C.The Federation, Mexico City, as well as its territorial demarcations, and the States and Municipalities conurbated in the Metropolitan Zone, shall establish mechanisms of administrative coordination in matters of development planning and execution of regional actions for the provision of public services, in terms of the law that the Congress of the Union issues.

For the effective coordination referred to in the preceding paragraph, said law shall establish the bases for the organization and operation of the Metropolitan Development Council (Consejo de Desarrollo Metropolitano), which shall have the task of agreeing the actions in matters of human settlements; mobility and road safety; protection of the environment; preservation and restoration of the ecological balance; transport; traffic; potable water and drainage; collection, treatment and disposal of solid waste, and public security.

The law that the Congress of the Union issues shall establish the manner in which the determinations of the Metropolitan Development Council are taken, which may include:

a)The delimitation of the territorial areas and the coordination actions for the operation and functioning of public works and services of metropolitan scope;

b)The commitments that each of the parties assumes for the allocation of resources to the metropolitan projects; and

c)The joint and coordinated projection of the development of the conurbated zones and of the provision of public services.

D.The prohibitions and limitations that this Constitution establishes for the States shall apply to Mexico City.