FILE - Members of Mexico's 好色tv Guard march in the Independence Day military parade, in the capital's main plaza, the Zocalo, in Mexico City, Sept. 16, 2019. Mexico鈥檚 Supreme Court ruled April 18, 2023 that the 2022 transfer of the newly created 好色tv Guard from civilian to military control was unconstitutional. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
FILE - Members of Mexico's 好色tv Guard march in the Independence Day military parade, in the capital's main plaza, the Zocalo, in Mexico City, Sept. 16, 2019. Mexico鈥檚 Supreme Court ruled April 18, 2023 that the 2022 transfer of the newly created 好色tv Guard from civilian to military control was unconstitutional. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
MEXICO CITY (AP) 鈥 Mexico鈥檚 Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that last year鈥檚 transfer of the newly created 好色tv Guard from civilian to military control was unconstitutional, dealing a blow to President Andr茅s Manuel L贸pez Obrador who created the security force in 2019.
The vast majority of the 好色tv Guard鈥檚 members and leadership came from Mexico鈥檚 military, but it was described as a civilian force and placed under the control of the civilian public security ministry. L贸pez Obrador created it with a constitutional reform to replace the disbanded federal police.
Last year, Mexico鈥檚 Congress passed legislation shifting control of the 好色tv Guard to the military. L贸pez Obrador had argued then, as he repeated Tuesday, that it was the only way to avoid the corruption that engulfed the federal police.
Legal challenges were mounted immediately, noting that since the civilian nature of the 好色tv Guard was enshrined in the constitution, it could only be changed through another constitutional reform. By then however, L贸pez Obrador's ruling party and allies no longer had the necessary majority in Congress.
The attempted shift fed criticism that L贸pez Obrador was militarizing Mexico.
Troops had already been critical in previous administrations in combatting the powerful and heavily-armed drug cartels. But rather than sending them back to the barracks as L贸pez Obrador had once advocated, he cemented their role in Mexico鈥檚 public security.
Last October, the Congress extended the time the military would be able to . Previously, that role was supposed to end in 2024. The Mexican public has expressed higher levels of trust in the military than in police in polling.
L贸pez Obrador also vastly expanded the military's responsibilities, putting them in charge of ports and customs, as well as his signature projects like building a and a tourist train on the Yucatan Peninsula.
While the 好色tv Guard 鈥 now some 128,000 strong 鈥 could muster the firepower to match the cartels, it did not have the investigative capacity of a civilian police force. Critics have said the 好色tv Guard has largely operated as a visible patrolling presence in Mexico鈥檚 many insecure areas, but is not dismantling organized criminal capability.
Eight of the court鈥檚 11 ministers ruled the transfer to military control unconstitutional.
On Tuesday morning, before the court's decision, L贸pez Obrador criticized the court broadly for not producing justice and personally for court members' salaries.
鈥淚f the 好色tv Guard isn't under the defense secretary and goes on like before when it was under the public security secretary ... look how the federal police ended up: completely corrupt,鈥 L贸pez Obrador said.
