Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum defended the autonomy of the nation's Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) regarding its ruling against Grupo Salinas, which sided with the tax authority on the collection of back taxes for fiscal years 2008 to 2013. 'What they said is that the sentences of the collegiate courts are firm,' she said during her morning press conference. Sheinbaum used the question to read key points from the court's resolution, which brought years of litigation between Ricardo Salinas Pliego's group and the country's fiscal and justice authorities to a close. In this case, she said it is a long process. For now, the company has already clarified that it will appeal the case before international courts in a highly confrontational statement, accusing the court of acting on orders, being under political persecution, and pointing to the Sheinbaum government as authoritarian. 'What the court did was dismiss seven resources, and the sentences are now firm,' she said, emphasizing that the previous ministers 'did not want' to resolve the issue, neither for nor against. After this ruling, the president clarified that another procedure is coming, acknowledging the possible scenario that the company may not want to pay. 'This is very important because it's not as if the Court suddenly decided without any precedents,' Sheinbaum said, referring to the SCJN's statement where the entire legal process is exposed, as the company first went to the Administrative Justice Tribunal, which ruled in favor of the tax authority; after that, they filed amparos before collegiate courts, which were also denied, and finally they reached the previous Supreme Court, where the company's amparo requests were frozen. The new Court confirmed the conviction against Ricardo Salinas Pliego in its first high-impact political ruling. 'We are talking that other authorities had already told him that he was not right, but the tax authority. And it is not strange that they resolved as they did because they had already gone through several instances before 2018.'
