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Preamble In the name of God and by the authority of the Mexican people The representatives of the different States of the District and of the Territories which compose the Republic of Mexico called upon by the provisions of the Plan proclaimed in Ayutla the first of March eighteen hundred and fifty four amended in Acap ulco the eleventh day of the same month and year and by the call issued the seventeenth of October eighteen hundred and fifty five to convene for the purpose of framing a constitution for the nation and making it a popular representative democratic republic exercising the powers with which they are vested do hereby comply with the requirements of their high office by decreeing the following political Constitution of the Mexican Republic on the indestructible basis of its legitimate independence proclaimed the sixteenth of September eighteen hundred and ten and consummated the twenty seventh of September eighteen hundred and twenty one.

Title I

SECTION I
Of the Rights of Man

Article 1. The Mexican people recognize that the rights of man are the basis and the object of social institutions. Consequently they declare that all the laws and all the authorities of the country must respect and maintain the guarantees which the present constitution grants.

Art. 2. In the Republic all are born free. Slaves who set foot upon the national territory shall recover, by this act alone, their freedom and enjoy the protection of the law.

Art. 3. Instruction is free. The law shall determine what professions shall require licenses for their exercise, and what requisites are necessary to obtain said licenses.

Art 4. Every one is free engage in any honorable and useful profession, industrial pursuit, or occupation suitable him, and to avail himself of its products. The exercise of liberty shall not be hindered except by judicial sentence when such exercise infringes the rights of a third party, or by executive order, issued in the manner specified by law, when it offends the rights of society.

Art. 5. No one shall be compelled to render personal services without due compensation and without his full consent, excepting labor imposed as a penalty by judicial decree.

Subject to the conditions set forth in the respective laws, only military service shall be obligatory; and municipal service, service in connection with elections, and jury service shall be obligatory and without compensation.

The State shall not permit any contract, covenant, or agreement to be carried out having for its object the abridgment, loss or irrevocable sacrifice of the liberty of man. whether by reason of labor. education or religious vows. The law, therefore, does not recognize, nor consent to the establishment of, monastic orders, of whatever denomination or for whatever purpose contemplated. Nor shall any person legally agree to his own proscription or exile.

Art. 6. The expression of ideas shall not be the subject of any judicial or executive investigation, unless it offend good morals, impair the rights of third parties, incite to crime or cause a breach of the peace.

Art. 7. Freedom of writing and publishing writings on any subject is inviolable. No law or authority shall have the right to establish censorship, require bond from authors or printers, nor restrict the liberty of the press, which shall be limited only by the respect due to private life, morals, and public peace. Cases of offenses committed through the public press shall be tried by the competent courts of the Union, the States, the Federal District or the Territory of Lower California, according to penal law.

Art. 8. The right of petition, exercised in writing in a peaceful and respectful manner, is inviolable; but in political matters only citizens of the Republic may exercise it. To every petition an answer shall be given in writing, in the form of a decision by the official to whom it may have been addressed, and the said official shall be bound to make the petitioner acquainted with the result.

Art. 9. No one shall be deprived of the right peaceably to assemble or to come together for any lawful purpose; but only citizens shall be permitted to exercise this right for the purpose of taking part in the political affairs of the country. No armed assembly shall have the right to deliberate.

Art. 10. Every one has the right to possess and carry arms for his safety and legitimate defense. The law shall designate what arms are prohibited, and the punishment to be incurred by those who carry them.

Art. 11. Every one has the right to enter and leave the Republic, to travel through its territory and change his residence without necessity of a letter of security, passport, safe conduct or any other similar requirement. The exercise of this right shall be subordinated to the powers of the judiciary, in the event of civil or criminal responsibility, and to those of the executive, in so far as relates to the limitations imposed by law in regard to emigration, immigration, and the public health of the country.

Art. 12. No titles of nobility, or prerogatives, or hereditary honors exist in the Republic nor shall they be recognized therein. Only the people, legally represented, may decree recompenses in honor of those who have rendered or may render eminent services to the country or to humanity.

Art. 13. In the Mexican Republic no one shall be tried according to private laws or by special tribunals. No person or corporation shall have privileges nor enjoy emoluments which are not in compensation for a public service and established by law. Military jurisdiction shall be recognized only for the trial of criminal cases having direct connection with military discipline. The law shall clearly define cases included in this exception.

Art. 14. No retroactive law shall be enacted. No person shall be tried or sentenced except under laws previously enacted, exactly applicable to the case, and by a tribunal previously established by law.

Art. 15. No treaty shall ever be made for the extradition of political offenders, or of offenders of the common class, who have been slaves in the country where the offense was committed; nor shall any agreement or treaty be entered into which abridges or modifies the guarantees and rights which this constitution grants to the individual and to the citizen.

Art. 16. No one shall be molested in his person, family, domicile, papers or possessions, except by virtue of an order in writing of the competent authority, setting forth the legal grounds upon which the measure is taken. In cases in flagrante delicto any person may apprehend the offender and his accomplices, placing them without delay at the disposal of the nearest authorities.

Art. 17. No one shall be imprisoned for debts of a purely civil character. No one shall resort to violence in the enforcement of his rights. The tribunals shall always be open for the administration of justice, which shall be gratuitous, judicial costs being consequently abolished.

Art. 18. Imprisonment shall take place only for crimes deserving corporal punishment. In any stage of the case in which it shall appear that such a punishment can not be imposed upon the accused, he shall be set at liberty on bail. In no case shall the imprisonment or detention be prolonged for failure to pay fees, or any other pecuniary charge.

Art. 19. No detention shall exceed three days, unless justified by a warrant, issued in accordance with law, and giving the grounds for the imprisonment. The mere lapse of this time shall render the authority that orders or consents to it and the agents, ministers, wardens, or jailers who execute it responsible therefor. Any maltreatment during apprehension or confinement; any molestation inflicted without legal justification; or any exaction or contribution levied in prison, is an abuse which the laws must correct and the authorities severely punish.

Art. 20. In every criminal trial the accused shall enjoy the following guarantees:

I. The grounds of the proceedings and the name of the accuser, if there be such, shall be made known to him.
II. His preliminary examination shall be made within forty eight hours, to be counted from the time he is placed at the disposition of the judge.
III. He shall be confronted with the witnesses who testify against him.
IV. He shall be furnished with all information of record, which he may need for his defense.
V. He shall be heard in his defense, either personally or by counsel, or by both, as he may desire. In case he shall have no one to defend him, a list of public counsel shall be shown to him, in order that he may choose one or more to act as his counsel.

Art. 21. The imposition of penalties properly so called pertains exclusively to the judiciary. The political or executive authorities shall only have power to impose fines and imprisonment, as disciplinary measures, the former of no more than five hundred dollars, and the latter for no more than one month, in the cases and in the manner which the law shall expressly determine.

Art. 22. Punishments by mutilation and infamy, by branding, flogging, beating with sticks, torture of whatever kind, excessive fines, confiscation of property, or any other penalties, unusual or working corruption of the blood, shall be forever prohibited.

Art. 23. Capital punishment is abolished for political offenses; in the case of offenses other than political it shall only be imposed for high treason committed during a foreign war, parricide, murder with malice aforethought, arson, highway robbery, piracy, and grave military offenses.

Art. 24. No criminal case shall have more than three instances. No person, whether acquitted or convicted, shall be tried again for the same offense. The practice of discharging in one instance is abolished.

Art. 25. Sealed correspondence sent through the mails shall be free from search. The violation of this guarantee is an offense which the law will punish severely.

Art. 26. In time of peace no soldier may demand quarters, supplies, or other real or personal service, without the consent of the owner. In time of war he may do so, but only in the manner prescribed by law.

Art. 27. Private property shall not be taken without the consent of the owner, except for reasons of public utility, indemnification having been made. The law shall determine the authority to make the expropriation and the conditions on which it shall be carried out.

No religious corporations and institutions of whatever character, denomination, duration or object, nor civil corporations, when under the patronage, direction or administration of the former, or of ministers of any creed shall have legal capacity to acquire title to, or administer, real property other than the buildings immediately and directly destined to the services or purposes of the said corporations and institutions. Nor shall they have legal capacity to acquire or administer loans made on such real property.

Civil corporations and institutions not comprised the above provision, may acquire and administer, in addition to the buildings mentioned, real property and loans made on real property required for their maintenance and purposes, subject to the requisites and limitations to be established by Federal law to be enacted by Congress on the subject.

Art. 28. There shall be no private nor governmental monopolies of any kind whatsoever, nor any prohibitions even under cover of protection to industry, excepting only those relating to the coinage of money, the postal service, and the privileges which, for a limited time, the law may concede to inventors or improvers of inventions.

Art. 29. In cases of invasion, grave disturbance of the public peace, or any other emergency which may place society in grave danger, the President of the Republic, and no one else, shall have the power to suspend, with the advice of the council of ministers and with the approval of the Congress, and in the recess thereof, of the Permanent Committee, the guarantees granted by this Constitution excepting those ensuring the life of man; but such suspension shall in no case be confined in its effects to a particular individual, but shall be made by means of a general decree, and only for a limited time.

If the suspension occur while the Congress is in session, this body shall grant such powers as in its judgment the executive may need to meet the situation; if the suspension occur while the Congress is in recess, the Permanent Committee shall forthwith convoke the Congress for the granting of such powers.

SECTION II
Of Mexicans

Art. 30. Mexicans are:

I. All persons born, within or without the Republic, of Mexican parents.
II. Aliens naturalized in conformity with the laws of the Federation.
III. Aliens who acquire real estate in the Republic, or have Mexican children, if they do not declare their intention to retain their nationality.

Art. 31. It shall be the duty of every Mexican:

I. To defend the independence, the territory, the honor, the rights and interests of his country.
II. To serve in the army or the national guard pursuant to the respective organic laws.
III. To contribute in the proportional and equitable provided by law, toward the public expenses of the Federation, the State and the municipality in which he resides.

Art. 32. Mexicans shall be preferred under equal circumstances to foreigners for all public employments, offices, or commissions, when citizenship is not indispensable. Laws shall be enacted to improve the condition of industrious Mexicans, by rewarding those who distinguish themselves in any science or art, to foster labor, and to found colleges and manual training schools.

SECTION III
Of Aliens

Art. 33. Aliens are those who do not possess the qualifications prescribed by Article 30. They shall be entitled to the guarantees granted by Section I, Title I, of the present Constitution, except that in all cases the Government has the right to expel undesirable foreigners. They are under obligation to contribute to the public expenses as the law may provide, and to obey and respect the institutions, laws, and authorities of the country, subjecting themselves to the decisions and sentences of the tribunals, and shall not be entitled to seek other redress than that which the laws concede to Mexicans.

SECTION IV
Of Mexican Citizens

Art. 34. Mexican citizenship shall be enjoyed only by those Mexicans who have the following qualifications:

I. Are over 21 years of age, if unmarried, and over 18, if married.
II. Have an honest means of livelihood.

Art. 35. The prerogatives of citizens are:

I. To vote at popular elections.
II. To be eligible for any elective office and be qualified any other office or commission, provided they have the other qualifications required by law.
III. To assemble for the purpose of discussing the political affairs of the country.
IV. To serve in the army or national guard for the defense of the Republic and its institutions, as by law determined.
V. To exercise the right of petition in any matter whatever.

Art. 36. It shall be the duty of every Mexican citizen:

I. To register in the polls of the municipality in which he lives, setting forth the property which he owns, if any, or the industry, profession, or labor by which he subsists.
II. To enlist in the national guard.
III. To vote at popular elections in the district to which he belongs.
IV. To fill the elective federal offices to which he may be chosen, and which in no case shall be gratuitous.

Art. 37. Citizenship shall be lost:

I. By naturalization in a foreign country.
II. By officially serving the government of another country or accepting its decorations, titles, or employment without previous permission of the Federal Congress, excepting literary, scientific, and humanitarian titles, which may be accepted freely.

Art. 38. The law shall determine the cases and the form in which the rights of citizenship may be lost or suspended, and the manner in which they may be regained.

Title II

SECTION I
Of the National Sovereignty and Form of Government

Art. 39. The national sovereignty is vested essentially and originally in the people. All public power emanates from the people, and is instituted for their benefit. The people have at all times the inalienable right to alter or modify the form of their government.

Art. 40. It is the will of the Mexican people to constitute themselves into a democratic, federal, representative republic, consisting of States, free and sovereign in all that concerns their internal affairs, but united in a federation according to the principles of this fundamental law.

Art. 41. The people exercise their sovereignty through the federal powers in the matters belonging to the Union, and through those of the States in the matters relating to the internal administration of the latter. This power shall be exercised in the manner respectively established by the Constitutions, both Federal and State. The constitutions of the States shall in no case contravene the stipulations of the Federal constitution.

SECTION II
Of the Integral Parts of the Federation and the National Territory

Art. 42. The national territory comprises the integral parts of the Federation and the adjacent islands in both oceans.

Art. 43. The integral parts of the Federation are the States of Aguascalientes, Campeche, Coahuila, Colima, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico, Michoacan, Morelos, Nuevo Leon, Oaxaca, Puebla, Queretaro, Luis Putosi, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Valle de Mexico, Vera Cruz, Yucatan, Zacatecas, the Territory of Lower California, the Territory of Tepic, formed from the seventh canton of Jalisco, and the Territory Quintana Roo. The Territory of Quintana Roo shall be formed by the eastern portion of the Peninsula of Yucatan; it shall be bounded by a line which, drawn from the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, follows the arc of the meridian 87 32 (Longitude West of Greenwich) to its intersection with parallel 21, and thence till it meets the parallel passing through the Southern Tower of Chemax, twenty kilometers to the east of this town; and reaching the vertex of the angle formed by the boundaries between the States of Yucatan and Campeche, near Put, southward to the parallel dividing the Republics of Mexico and Guatemala.

Art. 44. The States of Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Mexico, Puebla, Quertaro, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and the Territory of Lower California shall preserve the limits which they now have.

Art. 45. The States of Colima and Tlaxcala shall preserve in their new character of States the limits which they had as Territories of the Federation.

Art. 46. The State of the Valley of Mexico shall consist of the territory constituting at present the Federal District, but it shall not be a State until after the Supreme Federal Powers move to some other place.

Art. 47. The State of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila shall comprise the territory formerly belonging to the two separate States of which it now consists, except a part of the Bonanza Hacienda which shall be added to Zacatecas, exactly as it was before its annexation to Coahuila.

Art. 48. The States of Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacan, Oaxaca, San Luis Putosi, Tabasco, Vera Cruz, Yucatan, and Zacatecas shall recover the extent and limits which they had on the thirty-first of December, eighteen hundred and fifty-two, with the alterations established in the following article.

Art. 49. The town of Contepec, now belonging to Guanajuato, shall be annexed to Michoacan. The municipality of Ahualulco, belonging to Zacatecas, shall be annexed to San Luis Putosi. The municipalities of Ojo Caliente and San Francisco de los Adames, belonging to San Luis, as well as the towns of Nueva Tlaxcala and San Andres del Teul, belonging to Jalisco, shall be annexed to Zacatecas. The department of Tuxpam shall continue to form a part of Vera Cruz. The canton of Huimanguillo, belonging to Vera Cruz, shall be annexed to Tabasco.

TITLE III
Of the Division of Powers

Art. 50. The supreme power of the Federation is divided for its exercise into legislative, executive, and judicial. Two or more of these powers shall never be united in one person or corporation, nor shall the legislative power be vested in one individual.

SECTION I
Of the Legislative Power

Art. 51. The legislative of the United States of Mexico is vested in a general Congress which shall consist of a House Representatives and a Senate.

PARAGRAPH 1
Of the Election and Installation of Congress

Art. 52. The House of Representatives shall consist of representatives of the Nation, all of whom shall be elected every two years by the citizens of Mexico.

Art. 53. One representative shall be chosen for each 60,000 inhabitants or for any fraction thereof exceeding 20,000, on the basis of the general census of the Federal District and of each State and Territory. Any State or Territory in which the population shall be less than that fixed by this article shall, nevertheless, elect one representative.

Art. 54. There shall be elected an alternate for each representative.

Art. 55. The election of representatives shall be direct, in accordance with the provisions of the electoral law.

Art. 56. Representatives shall have the following qualifications: To be Mexican citizens in the enjoyment of their rights; to be twenty-five years of age on the day of the opening of the session; to be domiciled in the State or Territory in which the election is held, and not to belong to the ecclesiastical state. The domicile shall not be lost through absence in the discharge of any elective office.

Art. 57. The offices of senator and representative are incompatible with any other office or commission of the Federal Government for which any emolument is received.

Art. 58. Representatives and senators are disqualified from the day of their election until the day on which their term expires, from accepting from the Federal executive without previous permission of the respective House any salaried office.

The same provision is applicable to alternates when in active service.

A. The Senate shall consist of two Senators for each State and two for the Federal District. The election of senators shall be direct in the first degree. Each State legislature shall declare the candidate elected who shall have obtained a majority of the votes cast or it shall choose, in the manner prescribed by the electoral law, from among those obtaining a plurality. There shall be elected an alternate for each Senator.

B. The Senate shall be renewed by half every two years. Senators occupying the second place in the representation of each State, shall vacate their seats at the end of the first two years. After the second year the withdrawal shall be according to seniority.

C. The qualifications necessary to be a senator shall be the same as those necessary to be a representative, except as to the age, which in the case of a senator who shall be at least thirty years of age on the day of the opening of the session.

Art. 59. Representatives and senators are inviolable for opinions expressed by them in the discharge of their duties, and shall never be called to account for them.

Art. 60. Each House shall be the judge of the election of its members, and shall decide questions arising therefrom.

Art. 61. The Houses shall not open their sessions nor exercise their functions without a quorum, in the Senate of two-thirds, and in the House of Representatives of a majority of the total of its members; but the members present of either House shall meet on the appointed day and compel through the proper penalties the attendance of the absentees.

Art. 62. The Congress shall hold two ordinary sessions each year: the first shall begin on the sixteenth of September and end on the fifteenth of December; but this period may be extended for thirty working days. The second shall begin on the first of April and end on the last day of May, but may be extended for fifteen working days.

Art. 63. At the opening of the sessions of the Congress the President shall be present and make an address in which he shall give information on the state of the country. The President of the Congress shall reply in general terms.

Art. 64. Every measure of Congress shall be in the form of a law or decree. The laws or decrees shall be communicated to the Executive after having been signed by the Presidents of both Houses and by one the secretaries of each. When promulgated, the enacting clause shall read as follows:

“The Congress of the United States of Mexico decrees (text of the law or decree.”

PARAGRAPH II
Of the Origin and Formation of Laws

Art. 65. The right to originate legislation pertains:

I. To the President of the Republic
II. To the Representatives and Senators of the Congress
III. To the State Legislatures.

Art. 66. Bills submitted by the President of the Republic, by State Legislatures or delegations thereof, shall be at once referred to committee. Those introduced by representatives or senators shall be subject to the rules of procedure.

Art. 67. No bill rejected in the House of origin before passing to the other House shall be reintroduced during the session of that year.

<u>Art. 68. The second period of sessions shall be devoted with preference over all other matters, to the making of the necessary appropriations for the support of the Government in the following fiscal year, the levying of the taxes necessary to meet the expenses, and the examination of the accounts of the past year submitted by the Executive.

Art. 69. The Executive shall transmit to the House of Representatives, on the eve of the last day of the session, the accounts of the year and the budget for the next. They shall be referred to a special committee, which shall be appointed on that day, consisting of five members, whose duty it shall be to examine both documents and report thereon at the second meeting of the second period.

Art. 70. Legislative measures may be originated in either House, excepting bills dealing with loans, taxes or imposts, or with the raising of troops must have their origin in House of Representatives.