The Union of Scientists Committed to Society and groups of Without Corn There is No Country [Sin maíz no hay país] expressed satisfaction with the order directed to the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) to refrain from granting permits for release or planting of genetically modified maize [GM corn] until the final ruling is handed down on the class action lawsuit brought by scientists, specialists and campesinos.
MV Note: Often translated as peasant, a campesino is a person linked to the countryside (el campo) where crops are grown; before the Spanish arrived, campesinos were esteemed as stewards of the land (Mother Earth) responsible for producing the community's life-sustaining foods. Today they are predominately the small farmers who cultivate small fields on family farms.
Speaking on the ruling by the Second Unitary [Appellate] Court for civil and administrative [governmental] matters headed by Judge Benjamín Sánchez Soto, Adelita San Vicente, with Seeds of Life [Semillas de Vida], said:
"A new legal battle was won to preserve the most important and most versatile cereal plant in the diet of millions of people—moreover, it is resistant to climate change."
San Vicente added:
"It is a triumph for the campesinos and Indígenous peoples who—despite the difficult economic and social conditions they face—continue to preserve the seeds of native corns. This rulling is about a new setback for the companies that promote GM crops. The judge's decision really begins the judicial processing of the class action lawsuit filed by scientists, specialists and farmers."
MV Note: This final ruling on the appeal confirms the provisional ruling handed down by the same judge on November 4, 2015: Mexico: Appellate Court Upholds Suspension of Planting Permits for GM Corn.
Monthly Evaluation by Court and Scientists: Effectiveness of Containment Measures
René Sánchez Galindo, attorney who filed this lawsuit, pointed out that results of the experimental plantings authorized in 2009 were never subjected to public scrutiny. With this judicial decision, monthly evaluation of compliance with containment measures and their effectiveness are now possible, such that the judge may ex officio revoke existing experimental permits.
MV Note: The risk is unacceptably high that wind-born pollen from GM plants will contaminate native corns. Many scientists say the damage would be irreversible. See also: Mexico and GM Corn: Multinationals Admit GM Corn Will Contaminate Native Corn.Sánchez Galindo explained that the GM corns they intend to plant experimentally and that use the herbicide glyphosate [Roundup] will be subject to control both by the court and by the scientists who filed the class action lawsuit.
In addition, this ruling by the Second Unitary [Appellate] Court revokes the decision handed down by the Twelfth Federal District [First-level] Court [First Circuit] on Civil Matters, which in August 2015 denied the definitive suspension of planting GM corn. These cannot be planted due to the appeal of the court's decision filed by the Corn Collective [Colectividad del Maíz]. Now, with the new legal ruling, the precautionary measure of suspension is final until the class action lawsuit or some amparo [protection, like injunction] is resolved, Sánchez Galindo added.
This year marks two decades of struggle by various social and scientific groups to prevent the planting of GM corn. In July 2013, scientists and human rights defenders—Antonio Turrent Fernández, Victor Manuel Toledo, Julio Glockner, Narciso Bassols, Raúl Hernández Garciadiego, Miguel Concha Malo, Luciano Concheiro and Patricia Moguel—filed the class action lawsuit against Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer Dupont and Dow AgroSciences, and against SAGARPA and the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources [SEMARNAT].
During this time period, they have received nearly one hundred challenges by the federal government and transnational corporations, which have filed 22 petitions for amparo, 17 were resolved in federal courts, including the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation [SCJN]. Spanish original