Mexican Legal System: Sources, Norms and Constitutional Hierarchy

1. Historical Sources of Law

Historical sources of law: The emergence of law through social life experiences. For example, the issuance of judicial sentences or the stabilization of certain behaviors. In view of an individual's initial lack of a normative framework, these practices are validated over time and accepted for their merits.

2. Judiciary of the Federation

Who is the judiciary of the Federation? The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation functions as the highest judicial body.

3. What Is the Legal System?

What is the legal system? It is the set of rules and institutional bodies of a normative nature established by the state.

4. National Standards

What are the national standards? All rules that are declared mandatory within the country by the political authority.

5. Written Law (Statutory Law)

What is written law? In Mexico, written law is enshrined as statutory law. Written rules are created by authorized bodies and follow a strictly formal process.

6. Classification by Scope of Validity

Explain the classification of a norm from the scope of its validity:

• Spatial — geographical scope where the norm applies.
• Temporal — period or duration of the norm's validity.
• Personal — subjects or categories of persons to whom the norm applies.
• Material (tangible) — the subject matter or content regulated by the norm.

7. Public Law

What is public law? Public law is the branch in which the state intervenes in its sovereign role; it includes constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal law.

8. Classification by Hierarchy

How is a rule classified by hierarchy? The hierarchy of norms can be presented as follows:

1. Constitutional norms
2. International treaties (that comply with constitutional requirements)
3. Ordinary laws and regulations
4. Individual norms (decisions, contracts, administrative acts)

9. Article 133 of the Constitution

What is referred to in Article 133 of the Constitution? The laws of the Union that emanate from Congress and all treaties agreed with the Republic, entered into and to be observed with the President's approval and the Senate's consent, are the supreme law of the Union.

10. Perfect and Imperfect Rules

What are perfect and imperfect rules?

• Perfect rules: Those whose sanction produces the absence or nullity of the infringing acts; they generate direct legal consequences (e.g., nullity of acts or loss of legal effects).
• Imperfect rules: Rules that lack a sanction; they prescribe behavior or state an ideal but do not provide a specific legal penalty.

11. Permissive Standards

What are permissive standards? Permissive norms authorize or empower an individual to do, or to refrain from doing, a particular behavior. They typically allow or enable actions that are not mandatory.

12. Rules as Statements or Explanations

How are rules referred to as statements or explanations? These are norms that complement other norms by explaining or defining the terms used in them, clarifying scope or meaning.

13. Exhaustive Rules and Supplementary Provisions

Difference between exhaustive rules and provisions:

• Mandatory (exhaustive) rules: Those applied independently of the parties' will; they require compliance regardless of private agreements.
• Supplementary provisions: Rules that establish certain default behaviors and apply only in the absence of a different intention by the individuals; they are displaced when parties expressly agree otherwise.