Your promptness in forwarding these documents is appreciated by the
Department.
There is enclosed, for your information, a copy of a statement which the
Department gave to the press on August 10, 1922, in relation to these
decisions.
[Enclosure]
Press Release Issued by the Department of State,
August 10, 1922
In reply to inquiries at the Department of State with respect to the
effect of recent decisions of the Mexican Supreme Court, the
Department made today the following statement:
“The Department has received the text of four decisions of the
Mexican Supreme Court rendered in May last in amparo proceedings instituted by petroleum companies.
These four decisions seem to be identical in all essential
particulars, and together with
[Page 681]
the similar decision of that court rendered
August 30, 1921,29 in the ampairo
case brought by the Texas Company, appear to constitute what is
called a precedent in Mexican jurisprudence.
“These opinions set forth that Article 14 of the Mexican
Constitution, providing that ‘No law shall be given retroactive
effect to the prejudice of any person whatsoever’, does not relate
to the provisions of the Constitution itself, and that when the
Constitution embodies retroactive provisions these must be applied
retroactively.
“It is further set forth that the fourth paragraph of Article 27 of
the Mexican Constitution of 1917, referring to petroleum and other
sub-soil substances, cannot be considered to be retroactive, ‘as it
does not injure previous and legitimately acquired rights’, but it
is apparent that the application of the principle thus declared must
depend upon what is considered to be an ‘acquired right’.
“The five decisions creating the precedent in question relate
exclusively to cases of leases or contracts which were made by
owners of land for prospecting for and working petroleum, and it
said that thereby the privileges of the owners of the lands ‘were
translated into positive acts’, and accordingly the claimants, as
the lessees or holders of these contracts had acquired rights to the
injury of which the provision of the Constitution of 1917 for the
nationalization of petroleum could not be applied. The inference
from these decisions is that petroleum properties in process of
development before May 1, 1917, when the present Constitution took
effect, are protected from a retroactive application of the fourth
paragraph of Article 27.
“These decisions do not, however, effectively deal with the rights of
American citizens in lands containing petroleum or other subsoil
substances where the lands were owned prior to May 1, 1917, but had
not been developed or as to which leases or contract rights to
prospect for and work petroleum had not been granted before that
date.
“The question whether the owners of the land in such a case have
appropriate protection is yet to be determined by the Mexican
Supreme Court. It is understood that there are a large number of amparo proceedings before that Court which
involve that question and are still undecided.
“The Department has also been advised by the Mexican authorities that
the Mexican Congress has sole authority to regulate by an
appropriate Organic Law the interpretation of the precepts of the
Constitution and that no Organic Law for this purpose has yet been
enacted.”
