{"id":83282,"date":"2024-11-08T15:40:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T20:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dejusticia.org\/?p=83282"},"modified":"2024-11-08T15:40:19","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T20:40:19","slug":"justice-in-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.dejusticia.org\/en\/justice-in-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico: reforming justice, weakening democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice houses a stunning mural by Jos\u00e9 Clemente Orozco with two representations of justice: one of them, with a sword, sleeps on a pedestal; while the other, with a scale, seems to be overwhelmed by (or participating in) a fight between thieves and\/or lawyers. Although painted decades ago, the mural portrays current problems of the Mexican judiciary, such as its inefficiency and corruption. Under the pretext of combating these and other ills, the government of <\/span>Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador promoted a judicial reform<\/span><\/a> that imposed, among other things, the popular election of the vast majority of judicial authorities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fragment of “La Justicia” by Jos\u00e9 Clemente Orozco, 1941. Sourced from <\/span>https:\/\/privateviews.artlogic.net\/2\/4e59a0eaf2c655e2142572\/<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

There are reasons to fear that this reform, approved in record time, will aggravate the current deficiencies of the justice system, and threaten the rule of law and democracy. Our fears are based on <\/span>a recent investigation we wrote for Dejusticia<\/span><\/a> (together with Carolina Villadiego) on the mechanisms for selecting high-level judicial authorities in Latin America, with case studies in Bolivia, Colombia and Guatemala. Although the text does not address the case of Mexico, we warn of the risks of several of the formulas included in the Mexican reform, such as: pre-selection dominated by political bodies; lack of judicial stability; and judges elected by popular vote and massively replaced. These formulas are especially problematic in a context of hyper-presidentialism such as Mexico (and Latin America more generally).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the reform puts Mexican democracy in jeopardy and may have repercussions throughout the continent, it is vital that we are aware of its scope and dangers.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the reform of the Judiciary in Mexico?\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

The reform focuses on introducing a judicial (pre)selection mechanism that is unique in the world: before, the (almost 7,000) judges of the federal and state judiciary were selected by different mechanisms; now, they will be elected by popular vote, from candidates proposed by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. This is shown in the table below:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Source: prepared by the authors based on the Intersecta infographic. Sourced from <\/span>https:\/\/x.com\/intersectaorg\/status\/1833687424716685762<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The reform also contains, among others, the following changes:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n