In Mexico, public servants, within the scope of their respective competencies, are subject to various responsibilities. Their regulation and the different modifications show various attempts by the Federal Legislator to better define and regulate this important area within the Federal Public Power Law.
The responsibilities of public servants are first regulated in the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, specifically in the Fourth Title, from which it can be noted that the responsibility may be political, criminal, civil, patrimonial or administrative. The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, in various criteria, has held that political responsibility is applicable to certain categories of high-ranking public servants for the commission of acts or omissions that are detrimental to the fundamental public interests or to their good office, criminal responsibility for public servants who commit crimes, administrative responsibility for those who fail to comply with legality, honesty, loyalty, impartiality and efficiency in the public function and civil responsibility that is applicable when public servants, through their illicit actions, cause equity data.
The system of responsibility of public servants is based on a principle of autonomy, whereby each type of responsibility is penalized through its own bodies, procedures, sanctions and legislation, with most of them agreeing on the importance of determining an economic sanction and a disqualification. In matters of administrative responsibility of public servants at the Federal level, the unit in charge of preventing, detecting and abating possible acts of corruption are the Internal Control Bodies under the Ministry of Public Administration.
Likewise, these units promote transparency and compliance with the regulations governing their competence, known as the principle of legality, which is monitored through audits and reviews of the different processes of the institutions of the Federal Public Administration, as well as the attention to complaints, denunciations, citizen petitions, resolutions of administrative procedures of responsibility and non-conformities.
Each of the administrative procedures carried out by the authorities within the scope of their respective competencies conclude with an administrative sanction, in which public servants subject to liability may be sanctioned or acquitted.
However, such procedures and sanctions must be subject to the principle of legality, which establishes the obligation of the Internal Control Body to issue its resolutions in accordance with the normative hypothesis described in the law, which must be adapted to the facts displayed by the public servant. In addition, the referred procedures must follow the guarantee of a hearing, originally established in the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States and whose purpose is that, prior to the sanction, the public servant has the possibility of defending himself and claiming his/her innocence.
Likewise, this principle establishes the opportunity for the public servant to challenge the sanction imposed on him, both in administrative and jurisdictional courts. The administrative court refers to the possibility of public servants to file the means of defense that are processed and resolved by the competent area of the Federal Public Administration. On one hand, the jurisdictional seat implies the possibility of the affected party to file the appropriate lawsuits before the Judiciary in order to defend his/her rights. Therefore, it can be concluded that the actions of the public official, as well as of those who determine his liability, must be subject at all times to the principle of legality, with the purpose of ensuring that his/her actions are in accordance with the law, with the risk that when the sanction is issued, it may be rendered ineffective for not complying with said principle of constitutional legality.
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