A district judge has temporarily suspended the dismissal of a non-commissioned officer of the Federal Ministry of Police who was part of a group notified by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) of his expulsion since December 28.

After this decision, the agent cannot be dismissed from his job until the court enters to assess the merits of the matter: whether the notice of his dismissal is in accordance with the law or, conversely, it is an unreasonable decision and you have the right to continue your posting.

In his temporary suspension order, which he can access political animal, The judge asked the authorities to “refrain from separating from the position currently held by the applicant for protection, as well as from suspending social security entitlements and appropriate pay.”

“I am the first police officer to get this suspension. I am a rock in everyone’s shoes trying to trick us,” the agent said in an interview. The officer, who is over 20 years old, asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. “In one way or another we were taken in a different way. cunning and ruthless, some being duped,” he said, referring to the way FGR’s superiors called the fired.

The judge’s ruling announced on December 31 allowed the agent to return to work on Monday, January 3, with nothing his superiors could do to prevent it. However, at this time they did not give him a function to fulfill, because the perspective was that he was outside the institution, like dozens of his colleagues.

Until the court decides

“This determination does not give rise to a right in favor of the plaintiff, as long as he remains in the position he currently holds for a longer period of time than the appointment given to him,” the judge said in his decision. That is, suspension does not mean that police officers are guaranteed a place.

What prevented him was that he was not fired before making a decision, because if he lost his current job, the 2008 constitutional reforms would have prevented him from returning, according to his lawyer, Pedro Ayala Espinoza. “The judge said that their constitutional right to continue working was respected,” he said.

Now, the parties must submit a report beforehand and a hearing will be held later that will discuss the legality of the dismissal.

Important fact: this suspension and everything that comes from amparo affects only and exclusively the person serving it. So far there have been other agents who have applied for cover and have been rejected. There is also another case being processed in Mexico City and the court referred him to Guanajuato, where the agent is based.

Another thing is that, with this antecedent, there are other police officers who are going to court if they are about to be fired. Fear is widespread within institutions and many fear they will be next. So this can be a resource for those who do not want to leave the body and are not forced to trade between salary and nothing.

The dismissals in the FGR began on 28 February, when ministry police, Ministry of Public experts and agents were summoned to various offices and informed that within three days they would be out of the institution. According to the testimony gathered by Political Animal, some of those affected were duly summoned: their superiors convinced them that they should meet with the coordinator to carry out the procedure or, simply put, they asked them to show up without providing an explanation.

Once there, agents receive an ultimatum: either they accept a voluntary release of receiving a check or they leave and their dismissal is notified for budgetary reasons and service restructuring. Faced with this dilemma, many choose to take the money and very few go to court, realizing that the process can be very long.

So far there have been no official figures on how many agents were fired, although those affected said there would be a list with at least 900 names, most of them members of the Criminal Investigation Department. However it has not been confirmed how many of them received his letter or how many were waiting for him, living by expulsion of the body as if it were the sword of Damocles.

Political Animal He has consulted with FGR several times since his dismissal was discovered, but until the end of the edition he has not received a response.

Email notification

After the uproar caused by the events of the first dismissal, FGR changed its strategy and began to notify using institutional letters. In a communication dated December 29 and signed by Edgar Gerardo Aguilar Quintana, head of the administrative unit of the Federal Ministry of Police in Mexico City, officers were notified that starting December 25, “the institution’s email accounts will be used as the legal means of choice for carrying out public interest notices and/or individual, labor or administrative in nature”. This phenomenon has been repeated throughout the Republic.

According to attorney Reyna Velasco, who represents several officers, the new communication formula seeks to prevent agents from meeting in the same place and providing scenes of anger or discontent. On the first day of dismissal, several videos were released that reflected, for example, an officer refusing to be filmed while handing over to a police officer.

The layoffs have been carried out with total opacity on the part of FGR, which offers no data on how many were affected or what restructuring meant in trades in which agents were laid off. In the corridors of institutions, the recurring rumor that there was an interest in the militarization of institutions and the process that ended the Federal Police to create the National Guard was given as an example. But so far there has been no official explanation. Also whether the expulsion will continue or what are the criteria for leaving dozens of elements.