Hundreds of Judges and magistrates joined a strike in Mexico’s judiciary on Wednesday in protest against a controversial constitutional reform with which the ruling party seeks to have them elected by popular vote.
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Support for the strike grew ahead of a key decision by the electoral authority, which This Friday, the party of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his allies will have a supermajority in Congress to push through this and other constitutional reforms.
With banners reading “yes to reform, but not like this,” judges and magistrates joined the protest that workers in the sector started on Monday. claiming that changes in the justice system will affect their services and the independence of the judiciary.
The strike does not include members of the Supreme Court of Justice or the Electoral Tribunal for the time being; judges, meanwhile, guarantee attention to urgent cases such as domestic violence.
“It is our responsibility to stand up against any attempt to subject justice to political interests,” Judge Juana Fuentes, director of the National Association of Circuit Magistrates and District Judges of the Federal Judicial Branch, told reporters.
It is our responsibility to stand up against any attempt to subject justice to political interests.
The coalition led by the Morena party swept the general elections on June 2. Its candidate Claudia Sheinbaum won the presidency by a difference of more than 30 points. and could have a qualified majority in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, according to official projections.
The new legislature will begin on September 1, while Sheinbaum, who supports judicial reform, will be sworn in on October 1.
If the majorities are confirmed, “The legitimacy of the ballot boxes would serve (the ruling party) to cement in the Constitution a new configuration of the rules of social, economic and political exchange, a new regime,” warned analysts at the private bank Citibanamex in a note to their clients.
The possibility of these changes being approved already caused the Mexican peso to fall against the dollar shortly after the election.
López Obrador sent to Congress twenty constitutional amendments that cover, in addition to justice, social security, health, the energy sector and the electoral system.
Following the general elections, Morena took control of 24 of 32 state governments, as well as hundreds of mayoralties.
In an editorial published last Sunday criticizing the judicial reform, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal warned that with these changes “Mexico is flirting with dictatorship,” a view that the López Obrador government called a lie.
In a statement, the judges and magistrates demanded that legislators stop discussing the reform “given its many imperfections.”
López Obrador argues that the project aims to clean up the judiciary, which he says is riddled with corruption and the privileges of high-ranking officials.in addition to serving private interests and crime.
Of every 100 crimes reported in Mexico, only 14 are solved, according to the NGO Impunidad Cero.
But analysts argue that The reform does not propose changes to local prosecutors’ offices, which are saturated with files and questioned in their investigative capacities and independence.
On Tuesday, López Obrador downplayed the strike by saying that “the majority of Mexicans will not care.” “At least we have the guarantee that organized crime criminals will not be released,” he said ironically at his usual press conference.
Since Monday, hundreds of judicial employees have closed their offices in several states, claiming that the reform initiative violates their labor rights.
According to employees, the proposal eliminates the so-called judicial career, since promotions would be replaced by elections to access, for example, a federal judge position.
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