As part of their political-control functions, legislators may request to start investigations based on public-interest complaints. They can also ask for the creation of committees to be in charge of such complaints, which in turn, must be reported to the legislative plenary for discussion and voting.
However, the reality is that the plenary almost never sees these files because they do not occupy an important place in the agenda.
At the moment there are 40 reports containing legislative investigations that have been on the agenda of the plenary for several years and will remain there if the Legislative Assembly Regulation is not changed.
Out of this amount, only two are the result of special, investigative commissions:
-Investigation on obtaining, using and manipulating information from the national intelligence bodies related to citizens, whether they are public figures or not. It started on October 30th, 2014 and it has been waiting to be discussed in the Legislative Plenary since May 2015.
-Investigation on the Medical Management of Mexico Hospital on the area of cardiology, use of operating rooms and angiography. It started on April 15th, 2014 and it has been pending in the Legislative Plenary since September 2015.
There are 38 files that don’t come from special commissions, but they are investigations carried out by the commissions on Environment, Control of Income and Public Expenditure and Security and Drug Trafficking.
Although the investigative works carried out by the legislative commissions are important from the political-control point of view and they have short-term results, the circle does not end because the legislative plenary does not get to know or vote on them.
That’s way legislator Rolando González proposed, more than a year ago, a reform to the Legislative Assembly Regulation to correct the problem.
The initiative proposed by González consists of a reform to Article 96 of the Rules of Procedure of the Legislative Assembly so that the reports from the investigation commissions have a fixed space for discussion and voting on the agenda.