Agrarian Law: An Overview

Agrarian Law Basics

• Focuses on the regulation of land, landholders, tenure, and land use
• Studies the legal actions of agrarian subjects concerning land
• It's a set of rules, principles, doctrines, and jurisprudence governing relationships among those involved in rural activities
• Founded on Article 27 of the Constitution, the Agrarian Law, and its regulations
• It is derived from land tenure originating from land distribution or judicial processes
• Obtained through agricultural land distribution
• In 1992, the judicial agrarian authority changed it

Elements of Agrarian Law

• Normativity (as per Article 27 of the Constitution)
• Land
• Individuals
• Tenure
• Exploitation; licit, environmentally respectful, & aimed at farmers' improved living standards

Agrarian Subjects

• Collective agrarian subjects: ejido communities
• Individual agrarian subjects: ejidatarios, comuneros, avecindados, possessors

Autonomous Agrarian Law

• It has its normative framework and jurisprudence

Agrarian Law Content

• It is federal, not local
• Substantive: articles 1 to 162
• Adjective: articles 163-200

Rules Related to Agrarian Law

• Environmental
• Constitutional
• Civil
• Administrative
• Rights of Indigenous People
• Fiscal (in some cases)
• Mercantile
• Penal
• Hydrological
• Notarial
• General Law of Human Settlement
• Amparo

Sources of Agrarian Law

• Real sources: social facts prompting changes in agrarian law
• Formal sources: laws enacted by legislative power

Historical Context

• 51% of Mexican territory comprises ejidos and communities
• All territory regulated under Article 27 relates to land, ejidos, and communities

3 Stages of Agrarian Law

Ancient Agrarian Law (Aztec Empire)

• Tlatoani, warriors, and priests had privileges of land use, enjoyment, and property
• Peasants could cultivate land and keep produce but lacked ownership

Calpulli & Calpullete

• Calpulli: Land given to peasants by the tlatoani for use and enjoyment
• Calpullete: A family head working land personally had land for use and enjoyment

Colonial Period

• Some indigenous peasants received land ownership, later revoked

Independence Era

• Land issues discussed but not resolved

Agrarian Law of the Revolution

• 1910: Madero promised land return in the Plan de San Luis, leading to Zapata and Villa's revolt
• Emiliano Zapata sought to restore land to rightful owners

First Land Restitution

• April 1912: Ixcamilpa, Puebla
• Ayala Plan drafted by Zapata and Otilio Montaño, focusing on social and agrarian issues

Ayala Plan

• Article 6: Restores land to dispossessed owners with viceregal titles
• Article 7: Distributes land from monopolies as ejidos

First Ejido

• Lucio Blanco, Matamoros, Tamaulipas, August 30, 1913
• Named after Félix Díaz's expropriated land
• The Law of January 6, 1915, issued by Venustiano Carranza is the birthplace for Mexican agrarian law
• Constitutionalized in 1917, Article 27 involved land distribution policies

Agrarian Law of 1915 Articles

• Article 6: National commission, local agrarian committee, executive committees
• Article 7: Concerned communities who needed or couldn't get restitution would be given enough land to make up for what they lost

Land Distribution (Endowment) Requirements

• Be a Mexican farmer
• Over 18 years of age, or younger with family responsibilities
• Lack land
• Live in the area
• 20+ farmers must file the request

Land Distribution (Endowment) Procedure

• Farmers petition the governor, who publishes it officially and provisionally assigns land
• Petition sent for investigation to Mixed Agrarian Commission
• Land valuation and plan requested from the SRA
• Agrarian Consultative Body drafts resolution, sent to the President
• Presidential resolution orders official plan if affirmative
• Create the ejido

Land Restitution Requirements

• Be a Mexican farmer
• Over 18 years of age, or younger with family responsibilities
• Have a viceregal title from before June 25, 1856 Be farmers
• 20+ farmers must file the request

Land Restitution Procedure

• The farmers asks the governor (attaching the viceregal titles) for the land, which is published in the official periodical and the land is given if plausible
• Petition sent for investigation to Mixed Agrarian Commission
• Land valuation and plan requested from the SRA
• Agrarian Consultative Body drafts resolution, sent to the President
• Presidential resolution orders official plan if affirmative
• Create a community
• President issues a basic file containing the presidential resolution, definitive plan, and possession/boundary order

Essential Documentation

Ejidatarios

• Receive a certificate of agricultural rights

Communeros

• Receive a certificate of communal property

Queretaro only has communes in the following

• San Joaquin
• Amealco
• Cadereyta
• 16 communities in total
• There can be additional agrarian activities if added later
• The creation of a new population will encourage farmers, no matter how little land there is (If not in Qro, but somewhere else) Start identical, with 20 or more farmers, it transfers to the Governor who ships is to the president, however it will say "creation of a new center of population."

Expansion & Division

• Expansion: It is a new measure when there is an ejido that needs more land, however it needs to be given to other seekers
• Dividing: in article 23 f XI, it states each ejido must have 20 people or more, one will earn the name "ejido matrix" and the other one seeks a new name
• The record of division register is in RAM
• Must have plans

Additional Actions

• Assembly records
• RAM registration
• Change from ejido to community
• Approved via assembly (Art 23 f XIII)
• New plans submitted to National Agrarian Registry (RAN)
• Plan, registry, and assembly approval needed
• Communes have stricter constraints
• Actions ceased in 1992, bodies disappeared, pending cases transferred to Agrarian Tribunals for resolution

Agrarian Law of 1992

• Salinas sought modernization, amending Article 27 of the Constitution

External Causes

• Mexico's entry into NAFTA prompted the end of land distribution

Internal Causes

• The president said the people are able to decide what will happen with the earth

After Land Distribution Ceased

• Agrarian Tribunals were created, replacing the president
• The tribunals issues judgments and sentences

Article 27 Explanation

• Private property can be modified by expropriation
• Section V discusses maximum ejido holdings
• Defines ejidatario rights
• Acknowledges legal personhood, land rights, protection for indigenous groups, improved living standards
• Establishes ejido bodies (assembly and representatives)
• Sets earth and natural resource usage rights
• Allowed the assembly to give total domain to ejidatarios

3 Types of Lan

• Pasture
• Plot
• Urban Zone

Ejidatarios

• Allowed land use, benefiting from land
• They are able to alienate their land or not, restricted to being the same memebers and before alienating to notify their family

Procedures & Associations

• May participate in voice and vote assemblies
• Have association rights with others or the state
• Land holdings capped at 5%
• Protected against eviction or fraud by agrarian tribunal

LATIFUNDIOS (FRACC XV)

• It stops the land owners to have too much surface
• If you are a livestock personell, you require a secretariat that will check how much earth do you need
• As a replacement for judges, those who lost their jobs are to go. In the end the state will have to advse those who procured land

LAW REGULATING

• Was once a land, restitution and creation of a new population, now it is recovered, and there are new populations and the earth is being divided

Tribunal Superior Agrario

• Will make an appointment with those individuals to give up their land
• The requirements of the people are that they must each have 20 or more people under their property, and mexican adults
• The lands must be registred

Requirements

• To have a project or a law made in the RAn
• Those in the RAM will write the process
• And their will have to be a president appointed
• They must have a wrinting, an allignment with the ram for those in the writing and the map that indicates where the earth is

ejido or community structure

• They are the same but their name differs
• It is organizational and consists of 2 organs

Elements

• Human
• Patrimonal
• The principles of the 27th constiution include

Organizational

• The earth has a origin in what type of way it looks itself since the privitization, the patrimony

Ejido/community structure

• Gonzalez Navarro and felix olivares gutierrez: entity with legal personality, assets, and land ownership, comprises people who live in one area as well

Organization

• The way they are organized in the region

Community bylaws and status

• Determine internal rules if not contrary to Constitution, legal code, or rights
• The status will have to be in the RAN
• The ejidatarios have to go to the president in order to make a register of it, their job from then on is to check up on the community to make sure it is safe

Two organizational elements

Organization

• Assemble council

General assembly

• A great organization that approves and debates the actions of the other communities in an area
• In order to be a legal community inside RAM the padron must occur every 6 months
• The reunion occurs no less or frequently then 6 months according to law (art 23)
• Must meet in the ejido or some sort of place that has some sort of culture impact
• Before changing a meeting spot it must be brought up and a reason must be added why in writing

Requirements for assembly

• Official documents
• The dates of when it happen
• The agenda
• 3. Time and establishment of organization
• The location
• The state organization and where its from
• The list of assistance
• Leagal quorum
• Instillation leagaity
• Have a presintation of a notary and a representative
• Selection of a debate team
• Must Have a president
• There is always a secretery
• Their are two people to keep score
• Also all of their signatures

Sorts of assemebly

• Simple with a normal act of adminstration
• Special with earth concern

Summon

• For the people to be their for the first summon day it starts at the start
• It will be 8 days and no more than 5 days from the latter it will be 8 deays from the third

People in charge of summon

• Will be in charge of letting the public and the community know that a meeing is on the horizon

Who should attend

• Commssioner
• Necessary inumber of comissioners
• And the representative for the community and the representative of earth