Currently, in Mexico there are 311 laws in force at the federal level. Their effectiveness is indeterminate, as there are no mechanisms to evaluate their effects and their results. Moreover, the fact is that in many cases, they often lack implementation due to administrative, budgetary, and social impediments.

On the other hand, the Mexican Parliament, in both chambers, has been facing an increasing volume of legislative proposals presented by either senators or deputies, based on the belief that they are being evaluated by the number of proposals rather than by both their quality and impact. Numbers show how out of the total of 2,091 initiatives presented by MP in the senate in the current period, 1970 are still pending, that is to say only 5.8% have been considered.

The time, effort and costs of 94.2% of the proposals presented are lost considering most of them will never be enacted. This output could be rather used in ensuring a better quality of each proposal presented.

Quality can also be increased by implementing post-legislative scrutiny, which evaluates that the legislation will meet its key objectives once enacted and promulgated. 

In this context the need to explore new methodologies towards a better quality of legislation came up in the Mexican Senate.

Nowadays, there are different models that could guide Mexican practice towards a systematization of legislative impact analysis.

There is a generalized exigence to improve the performance, as well as to recover legitimacy and legal certainty of legislative instruments. Furthermore, all this will result in an improved image of the legislative branch within society, which is particularly deteriorated at the present time.

With this objective in mind, in 2021, the high chamber hosted the First International Conference on Legislative Impact Analysis. Even though the organizers, speakers and participants never met each other in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic, very strong ties were created. To the extent that derived from the major input provided by presentations delivered by members of the WFD, European Parliament and the Swiss Parliamentary services, the Mexican Senate decided to engage in piloting PLS. An agreement was signed between the Social Welfare Committee of the Senate and the research institute of the Senate (Instituto Belisario Domínguez). 

The main goal of the agreement was to perform a pilot project to evaluate the impact in the Mexican society of the reform to article 4th of the National Constitution (2020) which created a right to a pension for all citizens over 68 years old.

As the first step for conducting the PLS, a group of experts was designated from two universities (public and private), joined by a legal advisor from Instituto Belisario Domínguez, and two senators members of the Committee.

Meetings were held with WFD experts, where they provided technical advice to the team, and stressed the importance on defining the key questions and the scope of the evaluation to be undertaken. Research questions were formulated, and an endeavor for extensive research on the subject initiated

Finally, the objectives of the scrutiny were defined in terms of reviewing and  analyzing the shortcomings of the implementation of the reform of article 4th of the  National Constitution. The process engaged authorities involved in implementation and stakeholders, as well as statistics from government authorities.

The study evidenced than a policy to protect and ensure social rights by public policy to extend social protection to the older population is an efficient mean to reduce inequality within its society. The population aged 60 or over was the most socially and economically vulnerable sector, out of which around 47 percent lived in poverty. In 2022, it became the second least poor group after the economically active population. Besides, from 2020 to 2022, nine million Mexicans fled poverty, being the pension for the elderly population (i.e. for all citizens over 68 years old) the program insignia against social disparit

Nevertheless, one of the crucial findings was the need to establish in the norm a formula to establish the amount for the pension to avoid the risk of insufficient support. An option suggested was to design a formula based on poverty lines by income. Including this provision within secondary legislation could provide a method to calculate the adequate amount in a yearly basis.

Another crucial finding was the gender effect on women and men, as the pension is the same for both: women have less participation in the labor market compared to men, so they are more likely to lack a retirement pension and many depend entirely on pension support through social programs. In addition to this, women may face more risks being in a situation of vulnerability, if they are old, indigenous, and/or disabled

Considering that Mexico is experiencing a phenomenon whereby women live longer than men, so a greater proportion of women than men constitute the elderly population, elderly women deserve special attention. 

Therefore, the universal nature of this pension is creating unwanted disparate impact on men and women. The evaluation envisioned the need to explore the gender dimensions of the non-contributory pension system, and the necessity to consider compensate negative effects by the introduction of affirmative actions.

Consequently, conclusions determined that this reform to include universal right to a non-contributory pension for the elderly in the Constitution validates that the Mexican Congress promoted solid legislation in accordance with human rights. By all means, in addition to protecting vulnerable minorities, it accomplishes its main function of promoting well-being, maximizing general utility by reducing poverty levels amongst the population. 

However, the evaluation revealed that the responsibility of the legislature includes not only inserting the rights into the legislation, but also fulfilling its obligation to specify precise standards to guarantee them through an effective materialization, expressing their content in detail, and therefore facilitating their enforceability. By this, the minority is empowered, whilst the authorities in charge of compliance to guarantee the rights know the precise terms of their obligations. Stake holders were empowered, and at the same time authorities were conscious of their duties, all of these fulfilling the protection of human rights. 

The document containing this pilot project on PLS proved to be a relevant input for the Committee, to the extent that some MPs considered the need to move towards the formalization of its practice. A legislative proposal was presented to institutionalize, in a non-mandatory sense, Legislative Impact Assessment both ex ante and ex post, within the commissions.

There, the chairperson will have the faculty to decide which topics or initiatives should be submitted to the LIA. This function is to be fulfilled by the Institute of Legislative Research in the Senate (Belisario Dominguez Institute) with an extended function. 

The Chamber of Deputies, on the other end, in 2020 started the Professional Career Service in which the Legislative Impact Assessment was introduced, and from 2023 is a substantive part of the professional competence required.

In the same way, in 2023 a series of seminars on this topic were held by specialists directed to parliamentary assistants in the Chamber of Deputies.

In conclusion, there is a growing interest in PLS and Legislative Impact Assessment in the Mexican Congress and the first steps have been already taken: a pilot of PLS was performed with interesting results, a legislative proposal was presented in the Senate, and the Legislative Impact Assessment is right now a required competence for the Professional Career Service in the Chamber of Deputies.