Mexico’s new Congress is considering a plan to reform the judiciary: NPR

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This month, a new Mexican Congress will come up with a proposal that would let voters elect all of Mexico’s judges to the bench. Mexico’s outgoing president and incoming president are backing a constitutional amendment to overhaul the judiciary. But critics say it would bring judges to the bench with little to no legal experience. Here to help us do just that is Will Freeman. He’s a fellow in Latin American studies at the independent think tank Council on Foreign Relations. Good morning, Will.

WILL FREEMAN: Good morning.

MARTIN: What’s behind this move? What do Mexican leaders think is wrong with the way judges are currently selected?

FREEMAN: Well, the outgoing president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, often called AMLO, and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, both argue that there is deep corruption in the Mexican judiciary right now and that only this reform can fix it. But their critics fire back that this reform, by popularizing over 7,000 judges and the entire Supreme Court, will allow organized crime groups to actually exert more pressure on the judiciary to try to fund under-the-table campaigns, to intimidate judges who are now going to run for office, as we see so often with the assassination and intimidation of political candidates in Mexican elections. So on the one hand, from the government, you have this argument about corruption. But on the other hand, you have, you know, these other arguments that there are serious risks involved.

MARTIN: Is there any way to gauge what the public thinks about this proposal? I mean, it’s a very significant change. It would be, if it were to pass.

FREEMAN: Yes, that’s it. Yes, you know, I think it’s a shame that we don’t have clearer information. On the one hand, the government has done polls. They say that at least 59 percent of the public is in favor. There are also more critical media outlets that have done polls that suggest that many people don’t really know the fine details of judicial reform — the fact that not only are judges going to be elected, but there’s going to be a new body that is dependent on the government and will oversee them.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the best information, but I will say that this has been a major proposal from the ruling party, the party of AMLO and Sheinbaum, and their party won a decent majority in the June elections. So I think, all in all, we can say that there is probably a majority that supports this proposal.

MARTIN: Do you think the public agrees that there is a problem with the judiciary now? – that this is not just a preoccupation of the – of the administrative agencies. Do you think the public broadly suspects that there is a problem, or believes that there is a problem that needs to be solved, whether it’s the right solution or not?

FREEMAN: Oh, absolutely. I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Mexico or anyone who follows the country closely who would really disagree with that statement. But the criticism that we often hear now is that the problem is not really or primarily with the judges — again, judges who decide the guilt or innocence of a defendant in criminal cases — but really with the prosecutors, the ones who — open investigations, initiate cases, decide who should be investigated, who should be charged.

And I mean, I can speak for myself. I’ve spent a lot of time in Mexico talking to prosecutors, people who have gone through the district attorney’s office. Compared to other district attorney’s offices that I’ve encountered in Latin America, I think corruption in Mexico is — I mean, it has to be at one of the highest levels. In some states, the district attorney’s offices, you know, are completely subservient to organized crime. So that really should be, I think — and you know, other people would argue as well — what the government should be focusing on — is making the prosecutors, maybe at the state level, and the local police stronger, more honest, more efficient.

But instead, they have been trained – they are watching the judges, and that will tell you that this may have something to do with the government’s attempts to weaken the checks and balances, for example, by weakening the Supreme Court, which is one of the most important institutions in Mexico and has actually blocked a number of proposals and bills from this ruling party.

MARTIN: Okay. We’ve only got 20 seconds, but you know, in the United States, there’s a hybrid system. Judges at the highest level are generally appointed, but there are judges at the local, municipal, and sometimes state levels who are elected. Do we have any sense of whether there’s an American view of this?

FREEMAN: Well, you know, I think the American ambassador has been critical, but here’s the big difference. In the United States, we don’t have vast drug cartels that kill and intimidate politicians.

MARTIN: Good.

FREEMAN: That’s what you have with judges in Mexico.

MARTIN: That’s Will Freeman. He’s a fellow in Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Will Freeman, thank you very much.

FREEMAN: Thank you.

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