Mexico City.- The New York City Bar Association called on President Andrés López Obrador and his successor Claudia Sheinbaum to respect judicial independence and to consider national and international experts and organizations in the debate on a reform in this area.
The association of litigators said that López Obrador’s initiative puts fundamental democratic conditions at risk, erodes the protection of individual liberties and impartial oversight of political power, and will cause damage to investment and the economy.
The statement was signed by Jaime Chávez Alor, Deputy Executive Director of the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice; Christopher Pioch, President of the Working Group on the Independence of Lawyers and Judges; and Jessenia Vazcones-Yagual, head of the Inter-American Affairs Committee. “The Bar Association of the City urges President López Obrador and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum to recognize the importance of an independent judiciary for the rule of law and to respect judicial independence in accordance with international law and Mexico’s international commitments,” the text says.
“The current proposal carries risks that could undermine the impartiality and effectiveness of the judiciary. Furthermore, the institutional weakening of the judiciary may create a significant power imbalance in its relationship with the executive and legislative branches, affecting the factors that maintain checks and balances in the functioning of the Mexican State.”
“This can put fundamental democratic conditions at risk, eroding the protection of individual liberties and the preservation of impartial oversight of political power. In addition, the work of lawyers requires legal certainty that a weak judiciary cannot provide. A partial judiciary will affect business, investment opportunities and economic development.” For this reason, the College made a strong call to the Mexican Government to convene a public debate with civil society, academia and national and international experts and the UN Special Rapporteur, to discuss a reform that weighs the merits of the changes to the Judiciary. According to the association, the motivation for the proposed constitutional reform is López Obrador’s discontent with the decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice that annulled some of his priority policies and legal reforms. The New York College also questions the benefits of electing judges by popular vote, due to their politicization, derived from their problematic operation in the few countries in which they have been established. “There are not many examples of elected judges in Latin America. Bolivia adopted this model of selection by universal suffrage for the higher courts in 2009. In these 15 years, problems have arisen in the functioning of the judicial system and citizens show little interest in participating, with percentages of null votes around 60 percent,” he said. “The ‘Diagnosis on the Independence of the Bolivian Judicial System’, prepared by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice of the Bar of the City of New York and the Latin American Federation of Magistrates, concluded that the election of judges for the higher courts in Bolivia is problematic, among other reasons, due to high political influence.”
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