In response to the recent decision by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) to limit the ability of indigenous peoples to file lawsuits to defend their collective rights—on the condition that those who do so have the unanimous support of their community—indigenous communities in the Maya region are denouncing this move as an attempt to facilitate the dispossession of indigenous peoples.
“The problem we are facing is becoming more acute in the sense that previously the struggle was against development companies, but now the federal government has exacerbated and worsened the problem, because it has become an agent of dispossession, the very entity that is dispossessing us,” said Pedro Uc, a Mayan poet from the Yucatán Peninsula and member of the Assembly of Defenders of the Mayan Territory Múuch´Xíimbal, in an interview with Desinformémonos.
Uc argued that this type of legal amendment seeks to facilitate the dispossession of their territories. In particular, he noted that the Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate the legal challenge to the defense of a territory by an individual—who would need the endorsement of the entire community and its legal representation to do so—is a way to prevent such defense.
“It seems to me like a trap, an injustice on the part of the State against those of us who have been defending our territory. The problem is that they are stripping a person of their right, because it seems to me that we, as indigenous peoples, have a right that no one can take away from us, lend us, or rent to us. With this decision, the Supreme Court is eliminating our right to be participants in a collective heritage,” he analyzed.
The Change in the Ruling
In a split decision, with a majority of five out of nine justices ruling in favor, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled on a direct amparo petition filed by a resident of San Sebastián Tutla, in Oaxaca, who sought the revocation of the construction permits for the “Entre Sierras” housing development.
The trial court ruled that the individual lacked standing to act on behalf of the entire community, and now the Supreme Court has upheld that position by rejecting the request for recognition that the affected individual made in that higher court when seeking support to defend the community’s rights. However, the Supreme Court denied that support.
The ruling highlights the requirement established by the 2024 amendment to Article 2 of the Constitution, which recognizes Mexico’s indigenous communities as “subjects of public law, with legal personality and their own assets,” thereby limiting the authority to act on behalf of the community solely to those who hold legal representation for it.
“We’ve taken several cases to court and were successful. There was a megaproject called the Agreement for the Sustainability of the Yucatán Peninsula (ASPY) that sought to strip small farmers, communal landholders, and Indigenous peoples of their lands. We took the case to court on behalf of just a few communities from the three states, and we won,” the source recalled. “Imagine if we had sought consensus from all three states for this to be valid. It seems inconsistent to me; I don’t know where they got that resolution from,” he noted.
He cited a second similar successful case against the expropriation of the 14,000-hectare Chichankanab lagoon in Dziuché, carried out behind the community’s back to hand it over to a business group under the pretext that they would be responsible for its protection. That case was also taken to court and won through a legal defense filed individually.
The new requirement stands in stark contrast to what happens in local communities when these mega-projects—which lead to dispossession and displacement—are implemented, as they often divide and co-opt certain segments of the community to work with them. It is even more than what is expected of the political and party system, where consensus is not required for taking action or making decisions. It was not even a unanimous decision within the Supreme Court of Justice.
The Role of Hugo Aguilar
The current president of the Supreme Court of Justice is Hugo Aguilar, who took office following the first elections for the Judiciary in June 2025, celebrated as the first “indigenous” person to lead the country’s highest judicial body. However, Aguilar supported the current change and was one of the five justices who voted in favor of the decision.
“The issue with Aguilar isn’t new; it’s a problem we’ve been dragging along since colonial times,” noted Pedro Uc. “We must remember that the colonizers took indigenous people who had sold out and placed them as leaders of their communities so that they could serve as a means of domination and exploitation, and they granted them recognition as noblemen. It’s an ancient strategy, effective for the colonizers. The government has not ceased to be colonialist and is becoming increasingly worse than its predecessors. The role Hugo Aguilar plays is precisely that,” he explained.
Aguilar’s track record in the Maya region became clear through his role in manipulating the so-called “consultations” regarding the Maya Train, according to Uc’s account: “With all that history of deception, injustices, and staged events that were called ‘consultations’ but never were. Then they made him president of the Supreme Court. What kind of justice will we have if we file an injunction against the train?” the defender fired back.
The interpretation from the Mayan communities, as outlined by the source, is that this is yet another counterinsurgency strategy aimed at systematically dividing, confronting, and dismantling the organization, the interviewee noted. “As Magdalena Gómez rightly points out, this is a way to weaken the organization of communities in different areas,” he explained.
Response and Defense
The source confirmed that within the Mayan communities, they have already raised the possibility of bringing the matter before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to defend themselves against the “injustice” suffered as a result of the SCJN’s decision.
“As part of our strategy, we have utilized the existing system of positive law—both national and international—because although we distrust all these processes, we believe it is a path we must take, so that later they cannot say we did not attempt to follow the established path,” explained Uc.
He added that the people of the Maya Peninsula are prepared to exhaust all existing legal avenues to begin “following the legal path,” and that they plan to meet with indigenous leaders from across the country in the coming days.
“We cannot allow these gross, cruel injustices to continue being inflicted upon us by a government of such hypocrisy—one that asks Spain to apologize for the atrocities committed during the conquest, yet internally continues to act like the conqueror, the colonialist, and the one who is dispossessing us today,” he concluded.
Original text by Eliana Gilet published in Desinformémonos on April 29th, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.