The first meanings of lawlessness mentioned by the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) in its dictionary refer to an action that is contrary to good customs or the law . The term, in any case, is usually used to refer to the act that removes the privileges of the person who had them.
To understand what the concept of immunity refers to, therefore, it is first essential to know what the privileges are. This is what the prerogatives or privileges that an individual has due to his position are called.
The capacity is granted by the position that someone occupies, by their functions and/or by an individual condition . When the privileges of the authorized person are withdrawn, the violation of immunity occurs.
The consequence of the violation, therefore, is that whoever had privileges ceases to have them. The decision to violate immunity is usually linked to the presumption of a crime .
At this point it is important to mention that the existence of the jurisdictions is justified by the intention of guaranteeing the autonomy and freedom of a person democratically elected to exercise a public function and represent the people. The jurisdictions allow legislators to carry out their work without the interference of sectors that seek to make their work impossible and without the influence of other powers .
The charters, in this framework, provide exceptional rights to certain individuals. However, they do not grant impunity . If there are well-founded reasons to suspect that a licensed official committed a crime, the violation of immunity can be carried out to annul the procedural limitations and thus judge the subject in question.
In this context, we cannot fail to mention one of the most notable cases of violation of immunity in recent history, that of Andrés Manuel López Obrador , who is also known as AMLO , the president of Mexico since 2018. This legal process took place between 2004 and 2005, and all the data surrounding it was of great interest to the press and the public.
It all began in 2004, when the government of Mexico City , which in the past was known as the Federal District , was accused of failing to comply with a court order according to which the construction of a street on land should be stopped. that had been expropriated by other governments. Although the order was finally respected, it was not done immediately and the responsibility fell entirely on López Obrador.
Since 2000, López Obrador was head of government, and therefore had legal immunity, more precisely with parliamentary immunity , that is, the prerogative of those who are part of a legislative group that provides them with partial immunity in the event of trial unless are of a constitutional nature. In other words, he could not be subjected to criminal or administrative proceedings unless so determined by the Congress of the Union .
Subsequently, the federal government, led by then-president Vicente Fox Quesada , requested the lifting of immunity for the Congress of the Union, with the aim that López Obrador could be subjected to a trial in which the matter would be clarified. Public opinion did not take long to reach the media, and the majority pointed out that it was a political maneuver to prevent López Obrador from running for president in 2006.
For a time, both the Institutional Revolutionary and National Action parties and the federal government maintained their decision, claiming that they pursued legality above all. The closure of the removal process took place on April 7, 2005, and led to massive protests against it. Finally, Vicente Fox publicly announced that they would stop their judicial actions.