The Battle Over Mexico’s Judicial Reforms
Photo courtesy: EneasMx via Wikimedia
As the world struggles to find its footing following Donald Trump’s vindication on November 5, a quieter but no less radical reconfiguration of the political landscape is occuring south of the border. Both upheavals are the culmination of growing anger and dissatisfaction felt towards traditional elites. But if the Trumpian revolutionary conservative project reflects the nativist frustrations of a declining imperial power, the Morena party’s reformist revolution in Mexico represents the rallying cry of an assertive social democratic consensus. Cutting against the prevailing rightward shift in global politics, progressive parties around the world are beginning to take notice.
On June 1 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s first ever female president with a commanding mandate to reshape Mexican politics. But despite already introducing a range of progressive policies, Sheinbaum’s tenure has so far been overshadowed by an intense battle over the constitutional reforms passed by her predecessor and political ally, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The package of reforms that has proven the most divisive, both at home and abroad, is the controversial overhaul to the judicial system. Approved by Congress in September, this radical experiment in democracy mandates that Mexicans will directly elect their judges via popular vote. To some, this spells the death of Mexican democracy. A dominant narrative has emerged, suggesting that Morena is moving to consolidate power and establish a court system beholden to one-party rule. Such a narrative evokes memories of the Institutional Revolutionary Party dictatorship that dominated Mexican politics for most of the 20th century. The reality of the reforms, however, is inevitably a more complex affair. Instead, these constitutional changes are a bold attempt to correct the rampant corruption, nepotism, and impunity at the heart of the Mexican judicial system.
The process to select judges under the new system will not simply be one of the party hand-picking its preferred candidates. Rather, candidates for the ballot will be nominated by all three branches of government before being subjected to review by a newly established independent body. Rather than centralising power around her, Sheinbaum is relinquishing it to the notoriously volatile beast of popular elections. Under the previous system, the President was simply able to select Supreme Court justices when a position came up for renewal.
Unsurprisingly, the reforms have faced fierce opposition from Morena’s political rivals and from within the judiciary itself. Throughout October, it appeared that Mexico was heading towards a constitutional crisis after the opposition’s case to have the reforms repealed was brought before the Supreme Court. To the surprise of many, the court voted to reject the motion after conservative Justice Pérez Dáyan reluctantly concluded that the court did not have jurisdiction “to say what the Constitution should or should not entail”.
Pérez Dáyan’s ruling leads us to the crux of the matter. Regardless of one’s opinion on the reforms as policy, their political validity is difficult to contest. Sheinbaum and Morena campaigned on a platform of constitutional reform. This was contingent on gaining an unprecedented constitutional supermajority at the election and, perhaps to their own surprise, they were rewarded with exactly that. With approval ratings for the reforms currently ranging between 68-75%, this judicial overhaul is best understood as an imperfect response to the widespread disillusionment felt among ordinary Mexicans. Rather than an anti-democratic blight, this is an emphatic rejection of an opaque and unresponsive justice system.
And yet, paternalistic onlookers north of the border, from David Frum to US Ambassador Ken Salazar, have been all too eager to intervene in what is unequivocally a domestic matter for Mexican democracy. One would hope that this liberal hand-wringing will temper now that America has elected a demagogue of its own. But the complaints emanating from U.S circles have always seemed rich, considering they too hold elections for federal judges and are beholden to a notoriously politicised Supreme Court. Indeed, what would liberal America give right now to be able to directly elect those justices who wield such frightening power over the lives, and bodies, of its citizenry?