Lawmakers repeal legal shield.

Members of the Baja California Assembly approved unanimously two bills that will repeal a constitutional legal shield that prevents prosecutorial agencies from pressing criminal charges against public officials.

State lawmakers voted in favor of the bills that were previously approved by the Legislature’s Government, Legislation and Constitution Commission.

Assemblyman Andrés De La Rosa, a Mexicali member of the National Action Party, presented one of the bills at the floor Thursday to request Mexico’s Congress to repeal the shield in order to permit prosecutors to accuse lawmakers, justices, the Attorney General, governors, state assemblymen and state justices.

According to the bill’s text those public servants would be dismissed at least temporarily from public duties with a judge notice to report a criminal indictment against the official involved.

The bill was sent to Mexico’s Congress for its analysis.

The other bill was introduced by Assemblyman Alejandro Arregui, with the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

The bill had input from four different political parties and covers elected officials at the state level, as well as some cabinet members like the Government Secretary and the Attorney General and city officials.

In this case lawmakers must first vote in favor of the accused official’s removal and after a judge notifies the Assembly of the case.

This bill must first be voted in favor by three of the five city councils in the state and then enacted by its publicizing in the State’s Periodical.

Baja California is now on the list of states like Jalisco, Querétaro and Campeche that had banned the legal shield that has reportedly been as a tool for corruption and impunity.