The Mexican Government has once again placed judicial reform among its top priorities. With the new conformation of Congress on the horizon, scheduled to begin activities on September 1, Andrés Manuel López Obrador seeks to give a new push to his project to remodel the Judiciary at the last minute, before leaving the presidency in October. The progress of the twenty constitutional proposals that he presented to the Legislature in February was blocked by the lack of quorum in the current composition of the legislative chambers. But the favorable results obtained by the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) last Sunday now open an opportunity for the party in power. “I do think that the issue has to be addressed,” said the president after learning the results of the polls, although he assured that he would talk about it with the virtual president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum. “I don’t want to impose anything.”
López Obrador has been in conflict with the Judiciary almost since the beginning of the six-year term. But in recent years, the fight has become tense. The president’s party tried to push forward a package of reforms sent from the National Palace in controversial sessions, but they were later overturned by the Supreme Court of Justice. After that scenario, the president intensified his war against the highest court. His main weapon has been the threat to change the foundations of the judicial system in Mexico. One of the points included in the initiative, for example, is the election of the Court ministers through popular vote. However, since these were modifications to the Constitution, two-thirds of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate were needed.
As Morena did not have a qualified majority, 334 of the 500 deputies and 85 of the 128 senators, the president months ago called on the population to carry out his plan C. Plan A originally constituted a constitutional initiative that did not come to fruition. , and plan B was a package of normal reforms that were not endorsed by the Supreme Court due to irregularities in the sessions. The third option was to achieve an overwhelming victory at the polls, which would give them as many seats as they needed to legislate with complete freedom. The election results have almost given it to them. The counts at the moment indicate that Morena and his allies, the Green Party and the Labor Party, obtained more than two-thirds of the lower house and were just two senators away from achieving a qualified majority in the upper house.
With this in mind, the president has once again put his reforms in his sights, mainly the judicial one. Although he has assured that he will discuss it with Sheinbaum. “It is part of what we are going to talk about,” he said, “because we present initiatives that are in Congress, to see which of those initiatives we can promote and have them approved. Maybe, since it is only a month, they begin the processes and then Congress, which is free, the deputies, the senators, resolve.” The month that López Obrador calculates is the one that will pass between the formation of the new Congress on September 1 and the departure and subsequent inauguration of the elected candidate.
“It is not possible to maintain a Judiciary that is not at the service of the people, of society, that is at the service, as is common knowledge, of a minority, and sometimes at the service of organized crime and white-collar crime. ”he said on Monday in his morning conference. “There must be a Judicial Branch that represents Mexicans, incorruptible, because, if not, we will not advance. But we have to see that, talk about it with the virtual president-elect, see what opinion the legislators have about the case.” Sheinbaum has already spoken publicly about the issue. Although he first let it be known internally that he was against the election of ministers through popular vote, he later supported López Obrador’s words in public and incorporated the initiative into his campaign proposals.
The Supreme Court joined the congratulatory messages sent to Sheinbaum this Monday with a letter. The letter, signed by the president of the court, Norma Piña, and all the ministers, highlights the fact that she is the first female president of Mexico and calls for an “open and honest dialogue” between the Judiciary and the Executive in the next Government. “We reiterate our best willingness to respond together to the demands for justice that our country demands,” she reads in the message. Piña has maintained a very tense relationship with the current president. The next steps of both parties will paint the bond in the future. For now, Sheinbaum has spent the last few hours responding to the numerous messages that have been sent to him, although the response to the Court has not yet arrived.
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