Mexico Government Transparency: Citizen Groups Deliver Petition for Public Official "3x3" Reporting of Taxes, Assets, Investments

CNN: Thursday, leaders of civil society organizations and activists fulfilled requirements to seek passage of the first bill ever introduced via a citizens' initiative. They delivered 14 boxes with 291,000 signatures to the Senate. The proposed law, known as the 3of3 law, would require that public officials publish their declarations of assets, of potential conflicts of interest and tax returns.

The promoters of the project, which petitions for a new Law on Responsibilities of Public Servants and also provides penalties for individuals involved in acts of corruption, had to collect more than 100,000 signatures to require that Congress discuss the proposal.

Among the attendees were Juan Pardinas, of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO); Eduardo Bohorquez, of Transparencia Mexicana; Maria Elena Morera, of Common Cause; the academic, Maria Marvan, and political scientist and commentator, Denise Dresser, among other personalities from civil society.

The chairman of the Leadership Committee of the Senate, PAN member Roberto Gil Zuarth, Ana Gabriela Guevara, of the Labor Party (PT), and Cristina Diaz, of the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) received the proposal and signatures, which must be formally processed by the Leadership Committee.

One of the greatest points of differences between party congressional caucuses is over the "3of3 mechanism". The PRI, the largest caucus, opposes that they be made ​​public. Imco director, Juan Pardinas, rejected the PRI proposal to establish a committee to review the veracity of the statements rather than making them public.

"Given the circumstances and the magnitude of the crisis of credibility and corruption in the country, that would not be enough," he told CNN Expansión.

Senator Roberto Gil said that while the signatures must still be validated by the National Electoral Institute (INE), legislators will include the content of the initiative in discussions of the secondary laws for the Anticorruption System. [MV Note: Constitutional amendments were passed in April of last year to establish an Anticorruption System. This session of Congress has to pass implementing legislation.]

The PAN senator emphasized that the issue will be the priority of the Senate for the remainder of the regular session, which ends on April 30.

"We say very clearly: we will not water down any constitutional reform," Gil said.

MV Note: It is notorious in Mexican government that sweeping constitutional reforms are passed, only to be watered-down and undermined in the convoluted details of the secondary or implementing legislation, i.e., "the devil is in the details".

 Spanish original