Talk:Constitution of Mexico

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mexico Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

I find the Article 18 crises section to be very slanted. Is it possible to get a rewrite?

Contents

[edit] NPOV dispute: Article 18 crisis

The section of this article dealing Article 18 of the Constitution does not appear to be neutral.

  1. It is given undue prominence. No other article of the constitution gets a section of its own.
  2. The section appears to be a partisan commentary: it is labelled as a crisis, implying that it is a crisis of the constitution, whereas it actually discusses a dispute between Mexico and one of its neighbouring countries (the USA) which arises from a judicial ruling on the interpretation of Article 18.
  3. The section does not read as fair to each side of the dispute: in its first sentence, it describes Article 18 as "troubling", before the article is even described.
  4. The section has an American bias, since it is considered solely from the POV of extradition to the USA, and appears not to accept that Mexico may have legitimate grounds for its stance.
  5. The section claims concerns from the "perspective of legal scholars", but cites no legal scholars as sources (in fact, no sources at all are cited). The concerns cited appear to be those which might be expected from American prosecutors, which is a rather different matter.

I suggest that this section should be deleted pending the expansion of the article to produce a fuller description of the Mexican constitution.

If it is felt appropriate for Wikipedia to cover the extradition dispute, that might be better achived done by providing a separate (but linked) article on the extradition dispute, or in the section on international strains in the article on extradition.

BrownHairedGirl 06:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with BrownHairedGirl. Section about Art-18 needs to be rewriten or even deleted. I dont found Art-18 as troubling; I also think there is not such a crisis. It is given undue prominence. --Abögarp 17:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Further research reveals that the Mexican Supreme Court has revised its position on life sentences, and that extradition is now possible. I have therefore deleted the section, since it is clearly out of date. (Sources: "Wanted Fugitive Raul Gomez Garcia Extradited to the U.S." (US Embassy in Mexico) and Mexico alters extradition rules (BBC News)). There may be merit in a future section explaining the shifting interpretations, but I suggest that this should not be given undue prominence, and should be carefully checked against the nuances of what appears to be subtly shifting jurisprudence. In the meantime, I have added a paragraph to the article on Life imprisonment briefly explaining the history of the dispute, and linked to it from brief note on Article 18 under the new heading "other articles". I hope that this accommodates all viewpoints. BrownHairedGirl 11:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which Supreme Court?

Is it just me, or is anyone else confused by which Supreme Court is being discussed in the following? "The reason Article 18 has become an object of concern for these countries, notably the United States, is that the Supreme Court ruled in October 2001 that life imprisonment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of Article 22, partially because it fails to allow for the possibility of rehabilitation as required by Article 18." As the United States is mentioned just before the "Supreme Court", on a quick and casual reading I did a double-take when for a second I thought that the sentence was claiming the US Supreme Court of the United States had somehow ruled to honor Mexican law :-) Why not just eliminate the re-direct and use the title of the supreme court article. Yaf 01:12, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Issue resolved with latest edit removing the point of confusion. Yaf

[edit] Interwiki linking to Spanish Wikisource

Spanish Wikisource has the text of the Mexican Constitution. Anybody know a simpler way of linking to there (i.e. an interwiki of a different language?) --Cumbiagermen 07:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] NPOV dispute:Entire article

The articles of the Constitution presented here are selectively presented to emphasize portions of the Constitution that are used by anti-Mexican propagandistas. Specifically, Articles 32, 33, 55 91, 95. This article should present the whole Mexican Constitution article by article, or just be a summary of the whole thing, not a presentation of what articles right-wing theocrats want people to read.Tubezone 16:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


I don't understand, why is this "anti-mexican propaganda"? Most nations have similar stipulations regarding foreigners. Except for the continuous prohibition on foreign pariticipation in national political affairs, most nations have these kind of stipulations. Of course, historical context is lacking. This prohibition on foreign participation in political affairs is based on the Mexican-American war, and the French Intervention.
Aditionally, I don't understand why these articles are what "right-wing theocrats" want people to read. If "right-wing" people wanted to convince anyone that this constitution is repressive, or goes against economic freedoms, they would point out other articles of the constitution, like Articles 6, 7, 25, and 28. I've added all of the above, except 28. I will soon. I am adding them not because I want to advance an agenda, but because they are part of the constitution.
I don't agree that "all" of the articles should be shown, because many of them deal with the same issue, or are repetitive in their nature (for example, all the articles that deal with the rights of the prosecuted may be summarized in a paragraph or two). However, notable articles, like the one that makes housing a right and not a privilege (4) and the one that grants freedom of speech as if it was not an inherent right, and then limits it to morality or whatever the State determines to be "peace" (6), or the one that gives the State the right to plan and execute national development, and places "social justice" as its main value, instead of giving economic freedom to the individuals and let Mexican choose by themselves the type of development they want, its pace, direction, and has "economic freedom" as its main value (25). Those are indeed very insightful.
Finally, for the "theocrats" you menction, I've added article 24, which is very important to me, yet was lacking in this article.
Since yours is the only current objection (article 18 is gone from this page), and your objection is based on attacks, I'll remove the NPOV tag. Hari Seldon 02:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of the Constitution

Today's "Did you know?" article about Hurtado and the Cristero war mentions that the 1917 Constitution had an article that forbade religious processions. That article is, I assume, not in force anymore. It would be useful if there was a section discussing any changes in the Constitution since 1917.RFB 17:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC) processions