The General Law on the Establishment of the NationalAnti-Corruption System(Ley General del Sistema Nacional Anticorrupción) is the legislative framework for centralizing the coordination of anti-corruption work at the federal and local levels and establishes the powers of the participants in the national anti-corruption system (members of the Coordination Committee, the Citizen Participation Committee, the Steering Committee of the National Control System and local systems participating through their representatives). According to the statutory instrument, the General Law on the Establishment of the NationalAnti-Corruption System(Ley General del Sistema Nacional Anticorrupción) was created.
In addition, the law defines the key characteristics of the national control system, approves the creation of a national digital platform containing declarations of assets and conflict of interest of public servants and a national registry, which is an open database of all private individuals and public servants who have been disqualified (disqualified from holding public service positions or acting as executors/contractors on public contracts).
The General Law on AdministrativeResponsibility (Ley General de Responsabilidades Administrativas), which will enter into force on July 19, 2017, establishes the administrative duties and responsibilities of public servants and private individuals (both legal and natural), as well as the types of administrative offenses and the procedure for imposing sanctions for their commission.
According to the law, sanctions for individuals for committing serious administrative offenses may provide for payment of double the amount of benefits received or up to $600,000, temporary suspension from participation in public procurement for a period of 3 months to 8 years, compensation for damage caused. For legal entities, the amount of economic sanctions increases to $6,000,000, the period of deprivation of the right to participate in procurement - up to 10 years, as well as a possible penalty in the form of compensation for damage caused, temporary suspension of activities, suspension of the right to participate in public procurement - up to $600,000.
At the same time, serious administrative offenses for individuals include: bribery, illegal participation in administrative procedures, trading in influence, use of false information, conspiracy, illegal use of public resources, and illegal employment of former public servants.
The law also defines possible cases of mitigation of administrative sanctions, including the existence of an active compliance program in the organization, as well as assistance to the investigation. However, if partners, members of the board of directors or internal auditors of the company deliberately did not disclose the facts of corruption known to them, the punishment applied to the legal entity, on the contrary, may become more severe.
In addition, the regulation establishes accountability mechanisms to prevent corruption, including the obligation to declare assets, disclose conflicts of interest and tax returns for public officials. In the original version of the bill, this requirement applied to all persons performing public contracts or receiving public resources, but such a broad scope was not supported by Congress.
The Organic Law on the FederalTribunal for AdministrativeJustice (Ley Orgánica del Tribunal Federal de Justicia Administrativa) establishes a special chamber within the Federal Administrative Court system to hear cases of serious corruption offenses by public officials and private individuals and impose appropriate economic sanctions depending on the amount of damage caused to the State.
At the same time, as part of Mexico's anti-corruption reform, decrees amending the Federal Penal Code and reforming the Federal Public Administration Organization Act had entered into force, adding the offences of corruption, such as the illegal exercise of public service and abuse of authority, to the criminal law and incorporating the Ministry of Public Administration (Secretaría de la Función Pública) into the executive branch of the Government.
Decrees were also adopted to enact the Law on Control and Accounting and to amend the Law on Financial Coordination and the General Law on Public Accounting(Decreto por el que se expide la Ley de Fiscalización y Rendición de Cuentas de la Federación; y se reforma el artículo 49 de la Ley de Coordinación Fiscal, y el artículo 70 de la Ley General de Contabilidad Gubernamental) and to amend the Organic Law on the Office of the Attorney General(Decreto por el que se reforma y adicionan diversas disposiciones de la Ley Orgánica de la Procuraduría General de la República). Under these regulations, the capacity of the Office of the Attorney General was strengthened.
These major legislative changes are a continuation of the anti-corruption policy launched by President Enrique Peña Nieto since he took office in 2012 and are intended to complete the implementation of the constitutional reform of 27 May 2015, which included the creation of a national anti-corruption system with the power to investigate and punish corruption at all levels of government. Initially, the Head of State had planned to create an independent National Anti-Corruption Unit to combat corruption.