—Mariana Velasco-Rivera, Maynooth University, Jaime Olaiz, Universidad Panamericana, and Irene Parra Prieto, ITAM
[Editor’s Note: Cross-posted from the IACL-AIDC blog.]
The final act of Mexican President López Obrador will be in collaboration with the president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and the newly elected Congress, after the landslide victory of MORENA’s coalition last June. The lame-duck President seems as powerful as ever. The newly elected Congress did everything to ram through a constitutional amendment overhauling the judiciary at the federal and state level, which was passed by both chambers of Congress in just a few days. Reportedly, MORENA (Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional) Senators, who were one vote short from having the required qualified majority in the Senate, resorted to heinous measures to coerce members of the opposition into voting in favor of the amendment. Having cleared the hurdle in the Senate in the early hours of 11 September, the judicial overhaul awaits the ratification of 17 out of 32 State Legislatures, which will come easily as MORENA controls 18 of them. The amendment undoes the judicial reform of 1994 that sought to consolidate the Supreme Court as a constitutional tribunal and created the Judicial Council, the body in charge of overseeing federal judges to guarantee judicial independence.
Among other things, it introduces the popular election of all sitting judges across the Federal Judiciary, including Supreme Court Justices, every 9 and 12 years respectively. The constitutional amendment will remove about 1600 sitting judges. The amendment will also reduce the Supreme Court membership from 11 to 9 Justices, and abolish the Judicial Council – replacing it with a judicial administration body and a Judicial Discipline Tribunal. That body will be in charge of overseeing and sanctioning judges, including removing them from office for the unspecified behavior of “going against the public interest” and filing criminal proceedings against those suspected of “being complicit of or covering up criminals”. The decisions of the Tribunal will not be subject to appeal. The same model is proposed to be replicated at the local level. The amendment also introduces faceless judges to hear organized crime cases.
At this critical juncture, in an open letter, legal scholars from various regions of the world have expressed deep concern over the potential consequences that the popular election of judges may have on judicial independence, the rule of law, and the safeguarding of rights and freedoms in Mexico.
Unfortunately, the judicial overhaul is only the beginning of what looks like a very difficult chapter for Mexico’s constitutional democracy which will continue to be dismantled. Last February, President López Obrador submitted a package of 20 constitutional amendment proposals that in addition to the radical reshaping of the judiciary include, among other things, proposals posing a serious threat to the independence of Mexico’s independent agencies (órganos constitucionales autónomos), and the electoral system. Additionally, the proposals also include the entrenchment of widely questioned policies that have resulted in heightened levels of violence and violations of due process rights: that is, the militarization of public safety and expansion of the pre-trial detention scheme (prisión preventiva oficiosa), respectively.
In light of this unfolding crisis and given the limited international coverage so far, two of us, in collaboration with Professor Tomás Daly, Director of DEM-DEC, created a portal to provide access to English-language analysis, policy documents, and press releases to help anyone interested on the matter get a general overview: https://www.demoptimism.org/crisis-in-mexico
We will continue to update the site as things develop. It is a collaborative resource, therefore everyone is encouraged to submit content suggestions. The submission link is also available on the main portal.
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