Home > 2.9 Electoral offences and sanctions > MEXICO - General Law on Electoral Institutions and Procedures of Mexico
 
 
 
Download file    
 
 
Article 482
 

482.1. For the determination of the responsibilities referred to in this chapter, the following procedure should be followed:


a) Once the complaint or report has been received, and given that no cause for inadmissibility or dismissal has been found, a copy of the complaint or report will be sent with its annexes to the public servant presumed responsible, so that he within f ve working days prepares a report on the facts, offers the corresponding evidence and explains what is in his best interest. The report must refer to each of the facts included in the complaint, confirming them, denying them or declaring that they are unknown to him, due to not being his, or referring them as he thinks they occurred. The facts of the complaint that the respondent does not respond to will be assumed to be true unless proven otherwise. The acceptance of the facts does not imply the acceptance of the administrative responsibility that he is accused of;


b) Once the report has been received and the evidence have been examined, the absence of responsibility or application of the corresponding administrative sanctions will be determined within the following thirty working days. The public servant and, where applicable, the complainant will be notified of the decision within seventy-two hours in the event of the cases of responsibility set out in subparagraphs b), d) to f), and h) to k) of article 479 of this Law;


c) When it concerns the cases covered by subparagraphs a), c) and g) of article 479 of this Law, the comptroller general will summon the presumed responsible to a hearing, informing him of the responsibility or responsibilities that he is charged with, the place, date and time that the hearing will take place, and of his right to provide evidence and plead what is in his best interest in the hearing, by himself or through a defender. There must be a period of no less than five and no more than f fteen working days between the date of the summons and the hearing;


d) If sufficient elements to resolve the complaint do not emerge from the report or from the results of the hearing, or if other elements are noticed that imply new administrative responsibilities of the presumed responsible or of another persons, it is possible to carry out more research and to agree, where applicable, to hold one or several more hearings;


e) With the exception of the President Councilor, the Electoral Councilors and the Secretary of the General Council, the Comptroller General can decide on the temporary suspension of the presumed responsible from his position, employment or commission, provided that this is appropriate for the conduction and continuation of the investigations; the suspension will cease when this is decided by the Comptroller General’s Office. The temporary suspension does not imply a prejudgment about the responsibility that the public servant is accused of, which will be expressly stated in the respective decision;


f) If the temporarily suspended public servant is found not to be responsible for the violations that he was accused of, he will be restored to his full rights and he will be given the payments that he should have received during the time he was suspended, and


g) When the existence of the violation motivating the complaint is proven, the head of the Comptroller General’s Office will impose the appropriate sanction and will dictate the measures for its immediate correction or remedy.