He increased self-harm of the President Andrés Manuel López Obradorwhose consequences are just going to begin to be quantified, it is probably their statement of the February 21st from last year, when revealed that he was intervening in the Supreme Court of Justice and I asked him to the then head of the Judiciary, Arturo Zaldivar that “help to” talking to the judgesso that will change their resolutions. That same day, after the morning where made public Zaldívar's collusion with himthe legal advisor to the Presidency, María Estela Ríos, explained the gravity of his words, but president laughed. He did not understand what he had done and a week later, when trying to quell the scandal, he said that he only intervened in Court when it involved “matters of state.”
Without seeing the dimension of what he had said, he unexpectedly built the building for the most important research that have ever made he Power of attorneyannounced last Friday in against Zaldívar and several former high officials of the Court, linked to Julio Scherer, at that time super-powerful legal advisor to the Presidency, for “violating the autonomy and independence” of the Judiciary“with the intention of satisfy personal interests and third parties.”
The investigation is based on a 32-page anonymous complaint presented after the president's revelation, in whose third paragraph they point out as a López Obrador's confession “his influence on decisions of judges and magistrates of the federal judiciaryrecognizing that, using Zaldívar's servility, he called him to intervene in different judicial processes to benefit his interests, (making) it clear that the former minister sacrificed the independence of the judiciary in exchange for personally having the favor of the party leader in power, and thereby ensure their political future and satisfy their need for prominence.”
Zaldívar, in fact, was awarded by the president. He did not manage to get re-elected, because of the enormous violation of the Constitution, but when he resigned from the Court a year before the end of his term, so that López Obrador could appoint his last minister, the president offered him to be Secretary of the Interior in the government of Claudia Sheinbaum. Zaldívar told him that he would better serve his purposes to reform the Judiciary as legal advisor to the Presidency, and sent him to work on it for his presidential campaign.
The investigation opened by Herbert Torres Coello, head of the General Investigation Unit for Administrative Responsibilities, was described by Zaldívar as a “witch hunt” where the political intention was “evident” that sought “a kind of revenge against the 4T.” What Zaldívar hid is that between 2019 and 2022, 283 investigations were opened against him due to anonymous complaints, which is not an irregular or illegal procedure, but rather by statute they must be investigated. The presiding minister of the Court, Norma Piña, for example, has 68 anonymous complaints from last year to date.
It is still an irony that López Obrador's statement had been given as a reaction to a court ruling the day before that allowed the former director of Pemex, Emilio Lozoya, to continue his trial in freedom in the Odebrecht case, because neither He didn't even notice the contradictions. Lozoya was always free while he defended himself until October 2021, when columnist Lourdes Mendoza published a photograph where he was dining at the best Chinese restaurant in the country, which sparked fury over the perception of impunity. Lozoya had also originally forged an agreement with Scherer to denounce renowned politicians from the PRI and PAN for having received money from Odebrecht for political campaigns in exchange for his freedom.
Scherer, a central figure in the investigation, was the one who promoted Zaldívar to become head of the Judiciary and who brought him closer to the president. Judges and magistrates celebrated when he presented his resignation as legal advisor at the end of August 2021, because they said that they would get rid of the harsh pressure that he exerted to modify rulings or favor those whom he indicated to them. The anonymous complaint details what Scherer presumably did with Zaldívar, and in the investigation they will determine if, as stated, he had the former minister's right arm, Carlos Alpízar, as a subordinate for these purposes.
The investigation touches the heart of the presidential office, not only because it establishes, based on the complaint, acts of corruption, pressure and criminal threats against judges and magistrates so that they would not grant protection against the Mayan Train, the “Felipe Ángeles” airport, the Law of Hydrocarbons and the Electricity Law, among several high-impact cases, but because it hits two pieces that were fundamental for López Obrador in an era marked by political and judicial terror without counterweights, Zaldívar and Scherer, whom they accuse of having conspired “to attack against the autonomy and independence of the heads of the jurisdictional bodies.”
It is striking in the investigation, however, that the focus of Zaldívar's alleged acts of subordination to the Presidency is found in cases related to commercial bankruptcy proceedings and the Institute of Public Defender, mentioning in detail the alleged pressure arms of the former minister. , as well as its operators, judges and magistrates with whom he wanted to take over the Judiciary Council, which is one of the main reforms to the Judiciary that López Obrador wants. What is suggestive is that at no time is the attorney general, Alejandro Gertz Manero, who would be the executioner for these arrangements, and who has in Scherer one of his two greatest enemies – the other is Santiago Nieto -, and in Zaldívar to a character who wanted to keep his position.
The investigation cannot be seen outside the electoral context and shakes the president, the candidate and the former minister. What dimension does that moment now take on after the morning of that February 2024 when López Obrador, laughing, said that Zaldívar would know how to qualify his statements and that the important thing was that he not be caught off base, which is what happened now in the pinnacle of power.
X: @rivapa
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#chatterbox #paradox
