Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled to validate the recently approved Judicial Reform after conservative jurists had called for the court to limit the number of judges to be elected by vote. The opposition would have needed at least eight Supreme Court justices to vote in favor of the limitation.
However, the ruling party obtained the support of Judge Alberto Pérez Dayan, who previously had voted in opposition to the government.
If they had succeeded, the opposition would have safeguarded the position of thousands of judges who would not have had to be elected by popular vote as the reform currently stipulates. According to the proposal presented by Judge Juan Luis González, only those judges at the top of the judiciary should be elected by popular vote.
The proposal was also intended to give the judiciary special functions, such as reviewing and invalidating constitutional reforms. In theory, the Supreme Court can invalidate resolutions that go against Mexico’s Constitution, but, according to senior judges Lenia Natres, Yasmín Esquivel, and Loretta Ortiz, only Congress can modify the Constitution, so amendments cannot be reversed since the reform has already been incorporated.
At the end of the debate, the votes of the three magistrates plus that of Pérez Dayán ended the discussion, shelving the request and leaving the Judicial Reform in place. This was the last possibility for the Judicial Reform to enter into force, thus closing a chapter in Mexico’s recent political history.
Both Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s previous administration and Claudia Sheinbaum’s current administration have fiercely defended the reform, which promises a greater democratization of Mexican justice. The reform proposes to limit the economic benefits of judges and hold popular elections of thousands of judges at all levels.
President Sheinbaum celebrated the Supreme Court decision in her morning press conference, “I am happy. Yesterday [November 5, 2024] the people of Mexico triumphed and the strength of reason won, sanity against irrationality.”
In addition, she emphasized that this decision respects the popular will expressed at the polls and that it would have been a disaster for the judiciary to destroy a project that the Mexican people indirectly supported during the last elections and that helped to destroy a corrupt judicial logic: “at least 500 judges gave jobs to their direct relatives…These clientelistic networks encompass more than 7000 public employees…The Reform to the Judicial Power, which today is part of the Constitution, has its origin in a fight against corruption and the privileges that prevail in the judicial power of the federation and thus eradicate from Mexico what has done so much damage to our country: corruption.”
