After weeks of protests, the reform of the Mexican justice system has been decided: the government is celebrating it as an important step against corruption. Critics fear for the independence of the judges.
At 3:55 a.m. in the early morning, the Senate in Mexico City approved the judicial reform with 86 votes in favor and 41 against. The majority of senators voted that all judges in the country would have to stand for election in the future. The outgoing left-wing populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Morena party had pushed through his pet project shortly before his departure on October 1.
The session had to take a forced break the evening before. Demonstrators stormed the Senate chamber. “The judiciary will not fall,” they chanted. For weeks, employees of the judicial system and students have been protesting against the judicial reform, which provides for the direct election of all federal judges by the people.
In the service of the elite?
Critics see this as a threat to the independence of the judiciary. There are fears that as a result of the people electing judges, organised crime, which controls large parts of the country, could gain more influence over the judiciary.
In his morning press conference after the vote, López Obrador defended the reform as an important step against corruption. “What worries those who are against this reform the most is that they will lose their privileges,” he said. Because the judiciary is currently in the service of the powerful, in the service of economic crime.
“There are ministers who depend on the men with the greatest economic power in the country and these are the ones who do not want the rule of law. They want to maintain clientelism and corruption,” said López Obrador. Supporters argue that the judiciary has so far served the political and economic elite – organized crime, not the public.
Opposition senators switch sides
In recent days, three senators have switched sides. This was the only way for the government alliance led by the Morena party to gain a sufficient majority in the Senate. One of them is Ángel Yunes Márquez, son of a former governor of Veracruz from the right-wing PAN.
“I know that this reform is not the best. But I also know that the secondary laws resulting from it give us the opportunity to perfect the reform,” he justified his decision amid loud heckling. “That is why I have made what is probably the most serious decision of my life: to vote for a new judicial model.”
There are several ongoing trials against both Yunes and his father in the state of Veracruz, which is governed by the ruling Morena party. The opposition is speculating that these proceedings could now be dropped.
“Radical decision”
Mexican political scientist Carlos Pérez Ricart criticizes that the judicial reform will not solve the real problems. “It is a radical decision that has no parallel in the world. It is a decision that will burden the country with additional operational, financial and economic problems.”
Such as the complex elections that are to take place next year and in 2027. The judiciary lacks transparency, says Pérez Ricart, but the reform will not fix that. “There is no reason to believe that we will have better judges, that we will have better prepared judges, more committed judges than the ones we have now. On the contrary, everything seems to indicate that we will lose many years of professionalism.”
For the reform to come into force, the parliaments of 17 of the 32 Mexican states must ratify it. It is considered likely that the ruling Morena party has the necessary support for this. The state of Oaxaca in the south of the country has already approved the reform.
