The Mexican Supreme Court rejected, by a surprisingly lopsided 7-4 vote, the so-called "amparo de los intelectuales" or "the court injunction of the intellectuals."
In essence, a group of public intellectuals, including Jorge Castañeda, Héctor Aguilar Camín (click here for his perspective on the ruling), and others, had filed an injunction against the 2007-2008 Mexican electoral reform, which prohibits, among many other things, that private individuals and corporations contract political advertisement. Intended to counteract, among other, the "swift boat" style dirty campaigns of the controversial 2006 election, the group had nonetheless argued the reform violated free speech, as it doesn't allow citizens to contract political advertising.
As late as this Jan 31, the court had reached a 5-5 tie. Now, the injuncion was discarded, though the court didn't rule on the content of the reform or on the legislative process but rather on whether it was proper to file and accept an injunction against this constitutional reform.
This means that for the time being - until the next electoral reform - and quite likely for the 2012 presidential elections, the parties, through alloted time slots by the IFE federal electoral institute, will retain a monopoly on political advertising - and that IFE will also retain its drastically expanded role of also policing this type of advertisements.
