Politics: Judicial reform becomes constitutional, with no other option left for opponents
On Tuesday, November 5, what was the last hope for opponents of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador and newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Judicial Reform vanished into thin air as, at the last minute, the Supreme Court failed by one vote to obtain the 8 vs 3 majority required to rule on its constitutionality. The constitutional reforms, which are now definitively part of the country’s Magna Carta, center on the popular election of judges, justices, and magistrates from the Supreme Court on down. For Morena and its allies, it is a key and necessary element in their Fourth Transformation, both in terms of democratizing the much criticized judicial branch as well as removing an obstacle to its policies and flagship projects, as the current court had declared AMLO’s key policy measures unconstitutional.
It is considered that the Judicial Reform's new constitutional provisions effectively abolish the independence and autonomy of the judiciary and will result in untrained and inexperienced candidates being elected who are beholden to political interests. The elimination of the judicial career mechanism for insuring a professional judiciary coupled with the resignation of thousands of judges and magistrates who refuse to participate in the judicial elections further complicates the outlook.
In addition, the new constitutional provisions pose new challenges to the judicial system and promise a rough start for their implementation, given that the logistics of voters selecting between thousands of choices in next June’s special elections and candidates being prohibited from obtaining and using public or private financing for their campaigns raise questions about how many voters will actually wind up casting ballots. An astronomically high abstention rate would pose major challenges of legitimacy for the new model of how judges, justices, and magistrates are elected and the very outcome of the elections.
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