Mexico City.- The PAN promoted an unconstitutionality action before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) to challenge the judicial reform approved last September by Morena and allies in the Congress of the Union.
The national president of the PAN, Marko Cortés, presented the lawsuit this Monday to ask the Court to declare the invalidity of the reform by which all judges, magistrates and Ministers will be elected by popular vote.
The lawsuit alleges multiple failures and procedural defects during the reform, among them, pressure on Opposition senators and the rush for approval, since only twenty days passed between the issuance of the opinion in committees of the Chamber of Deputies, and the publication in the Official Gazette. He highlights the threats to senators Miguel Ángel Yunes, of the PAN, who voted in favor of the reform, and Daniel Barreda, of Movimiento Ciudadano, who did not attend the session.
There are also accusations of procedural violations in state legislatures that ratified the reform in a matter of hours, and lack of prior consultation with indigenous people and people with disabilities.
Such is the case of Oaxaca, where the local Legislature ratified the reform in less than two hours after having been approved in the Senate. This action adds to the constitutional controversy promoted by the Government of Guanajuato, as well as the controversy that, under the rules of the Organic Law of the Federal Judiciary (PJF), the Court itself agreed to start last Thursday. This last controversy has already been turned over to Minister Alberto Pérez Dayán, while Guanajuato’s claim is with Juan Luis González Alcántara, who has not notified its admission or dismissal. In addition, federal judges are processing at least 70 injunctions from civil organizations and judicial personnel against the reform, in some of which suspensions have been granted that order the electoral process scheduled for June 2025 to stop. Political parties can only promote unconstitutionality actions to challenge laws on electoral matters, both federal and state, but there is no precedent for the processing of an action of this type that seeks to question changes to the Magna Carta, which is the control parameter for all other regulations. In its 241-page lawsuit, the PAN alleges that the reform violates fifteen articles of the Constitution itself, and affirms that it is legislation on electoral matters, since it regulates multiple aspects of the elections of Ministers, Magistrates and Judges, both federal and local. . The underlying arguments, beyond procedural defects, include the violation of the principle of division of powers, judicial independence, and the right of citizens to impartial justice. “The principle of Constitutional Supremacy requires that any reform be in harmony with the rest of the Constitution and, above all, that it respects immutable principles, such as the division of Powers and judicial independence,” he states. “For access and permanence, judicial officials must negotiate their appointment with members of the other Powers, resulting in external pressures and perverse incentives that denature the jurisdictional function,” he adds.
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