Former Gubernatorial Candidate Laura Fernández Piña Loses Appeal Against 20-Year Public Office Ban

Cancún, Quintana Roo — A federal judge has denied former gubernatorial candidate Laura Fernández Piña constitutional protection against a 20-year ban from public office imposed over the alleged embezzlement of municipal funds while she served as mayor of Puerto Morelos. The ruling preliminarily reverses a suspension that had kept her name off the list of sanctioned public officials.

In a definitive ruling, Mario Fernando Gallegos León, judge of the Eighth District Court of Quintana Roo, refused to grant federal protection against the disqualification issued in 2024 by the then-Fourth Unitary Court of the state’s Administrative and Anti-Corruption Justice Tribunal.

The decision came in case file 841/2025, an amparo request Fernández Piña filed in 2024 against the sanction. In dismissing the case, the judge argued that she had previously sought a similar amparo, and that the earlier file had also ended in a ruling denying her legal protection.

Gallegos León found that Fernández Piña filed multiple amparos over the same matter, seeking only to alter her legal arguments in pursuit of protection. He noted that the dispute had already been decided in a final instance by the Second Collegiate Circuit Court of Quintana Roo, making it a matter of res judicata that cannot be appealed.

“Therefore, since res judicata exists on the part of the Second Collegiate Court of the Twenty-Seventh Circuit, given that the complainant … knew as of Feb. 26, 2024, of the administrative liability proceeding in case number …, in which a ruling was issued on March 19, 2024, sanctioning her with disqualification and an indemnification and ordering her entry into the Registry System of Sanctions,” the ruling issued Wednesday, Oct. 14, states.

The judge also warned that allowing the former official to file repeated amparos on the same case risked undermining Mexico’s justice system.

“Taking a contrary position would mean that complainants could validly file as many amparos as they wished against the same proceeding, varying their arguments to challenge it, which would be entirely detrimental not only to the administration of justice by the lower authorities — who, in addition to deciding, have the power to enforce their rulings — but would also affect the Federal Justice system,” the ruling states.

Fernández Piña can still appeal the decision through a judicial review. However, her chances of overturning the ruling appear slim, as she has now lost two amparos in the case.

The sanction effectively ends her political career: she will be barred from seeking public office — whether through appointment or election — until 2044.

The Accusations

Fernández Piña, as mayor of Puerto Morelos, arbitrarily failed to exercise her authority to oversee municipal spending through the Municipal Treasury and the Directorate of Expenditures, failing to ensure it complied with the approved budgets for the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.

She also acted against municipal workers’ retirement funds, affecting pension benefits, according to the case. The actions resulted in a 70-million-peso loss for the municipal treasury.

The case stems from file 16/2024-SU4-II, issued by the Fourth Unitary Court of the Administrative and Anti-Corruption Justice Tribunal, which received an administrative liability complaint from the Puerto Morelos municipal government in a proceeding initiated in the first half of 2024.