CDMX.- The real problem with the judicial reform proposed by the regime does not lie in the principle of the popular vote, but in the way in which it is used to disguise a deadly assault on the Cortes.
The trap is in three elements: the control of the candidacies, their immense number and the creation of a disciplinary court, or rather, a judicial inquisition.
Under the proposed model, each branch of the Union would create a committee that, in turn, would select a group of pre-candidates for judges, magistrates and ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN). Subsequently, the pre-candidates would participate in a raffle to make a new selection. Finally, each committee would submit its list for approval by the President of the Republic, the majority of Congress and the majority of the SCJN ministers, respectively.
Obviously, the committees of the Executive and Legislative branches would be appointed by the dominant coalition. In the case of the Judicial Branch, the ruling group would also have a great influence because the committee would have to be approved by at least eight Justices of the SCJN: a majority that would require, at least, the vote of one of the Justices pro-regime.
In essence, covered by a tangle of baroque rules, the power of the people would be reduced to choosing between the candidates selected by the dominant group. It would be, in reality, a directed vote. As Norberto Bobbio argued, if there are no real alternatives in an election, there is no democracy.1 The deception would continue with an enormous number of candidates that makes it impossible for any human being to make an informed analysis of his vote, usurping free choice through saturation. For example, just to elect the Ministers of the SCJN, each citizen would have to select nine people from a group of 81 candidates. The setup to subjugate justice would crystallize with a new magistracy of terror made up of five people elected under the rules described above. In practice, this meta-tribunal, under the control of the ruling group, would have arbitrary powers to sanction and dismiss members of the Judicial Branch, infiltrating fear into every corner of the nation’s courts. Critics of popular vote have argued that electing judges by this mechanism would lead them to lose their impartiality because they would become guarantors of the interests of their constituents, losing the blindfold that protects them from favoritism. Minorities, the argument goes, would be ignored by unveiled judges, who would now be dazzled by the power of majorities to place them in their positions. However, these arguments have ignored the fact that it is plausible and rational that the primary interest of voters is that judges conduct themselves with impartiality. For example, when voting, many citizens, possibly the majority, would seek to elect the people who, in our view, could best guarantee the exercise of impartial, prompt, and expeditious justice. As Edmund Burke argued 250 years ago, the job of voters is to select who best represents the common good, not particular interests.2 Or how would you vote? It has also been argued that the popular vote could open the door for powerful minorities such as large economic corporations, union leaders, political party leaders, caciques, religious hierarchs, the media or organised crime to co-opt or exert undue influence on judges. These risks certainly exist, but they are not exclusive to the popular vote. The exacerbated influence of powerful minorities is also potentially present in other forms of selection such as cooperation between powers or even in poorly designed career civil services. However, for each method of election, it is also possible to design institutions that contain these vices. In this sense, it is perfectly feasible to develop systems of popular vote to freely and democratically elect members of the Judiciary. For all these reasons, the Opposition’s blindness has consisted in combating the principle of the popular vote and not its parody. By taking, once again, the bait thrown by the President of the Republic, the Opposition, without realising it, has played the role that the head of the Executive prepared for it: angrily opposing the participation of citizens. The opposition has thus shown itself to be exactly as it is described in the morning press conferences: reactionary, unimaginative and, above all, anti-democratic and refractory to the people. A real feast for the populist discourse of contrast between the people and the oligarchy. If the opposition would stop arguing with the principle of the popular vote and concentrate on combating its falsification, even if it does not have the votes, it could at least change the terms of the debate and expose the regime’s deception: invoking the people to dominate them. If it does not do so, the opposition would not only lose the vote, but also the debate for the freedom of the Republic.
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