A clear triumph against disguised censorship
The Supreme Court has just given a master lesson. It invalidated a part of the Tabasco Penal Code that, under the pretext of fighting organized crime, targeted any citizen with a banner.
The play was crude. Article 160 bis spoke of sanctioning public demonstrations using “banners, tarps or any other physical means.” Do you see the problem? That “anyone” was a blank check for arbitrariness.
Ministers considered that the wording exceeded that purpose and could be applied arbitrarily against anyone demonstrating in public spaces.
Translation: a rule made to pursue narcomantas ended up being a perfect weapon to silence social protests. The classic two birds with one stone of power, but this time the judges stopped the game.
When the law is so vague that everything is a crime
The ruling is overwhelming. The Court eliminated the phrase “or any public demonstration” for violating the principle of exhaustiveness. In Christian: a law must clearly say what is prohibited. If not, it lends itself to anything.
He also sent the reference to acts that “disrupt peace and order” to the trash bin. What the hell does that mean? A strike? A march? A sit-in? Too convenient for those who want to silence dissent.
The most ironic thing is the origin. The Congress of Tabasco reformed the code with the noble objective of sanctioning messages from organized crime. But as often happens, the cure was worse than the disease. They created a legal monster that threatened a fundamental right.
The SCJN, fortunately, has memory. He recalled that ambiguous laws are the perfect breeding ground for abuses of authority. And it reaffirmed something elementary: in a state of law, freedom of expression is not negotiated with dangerous generalities.
A good day for democracy. A bad day for censors with a legal complexion.
