how the separation of powers died in mexico

In recent years, we have seen in the Americas how the three most influential countries in the region have seen their congresses taken over by protesters: United States in 2021, Brazil in 2023 and Mexico in 2024. In the first two, the motives were electoral and both events were categorically rejected by the international community. However, in Mexicothe situation is completely different with a popular uprising that is a response to a genuine concern: the end of the separation of powers in Mexico.

Why is the reform so controversial and what consequences does it already have for Mexico?

On Tuesday, September 10, the Mexican Senate became a battlefield. Protesters – most of them employees of the judiciary, law students from various universities and academics who recognize the risks of approving the reform – took over the upper house for several hours while the ruling party, led by the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO)approved a controversial judicial reform that was rejected by a significant part of Mexican society.

The demonstrators, shouting “traitors”, forced José Gerardo FernandezPresident of the Senate, to temporarily suspend the session. But the attempt was in vain. Later, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the reform was approved by 86 votes in favor, which is two-thirds of the 127 senators presentIt received only 41 votes against from opposition parties, allowing some defectors to contribute to its formal approval.

AMLO’s judicial reform generates abrupt changes and an absolute reconstruction of the Mexican judiciary. First, it looks forward to the total renewal of the Supreme Court in 2025, as well as half of the circuit magistrates and judgesThe bill also aims to reduce the number of Supreme Court justices from 11 to 9, and shorten their terms from 15 to 12 years. The most important reform, however, which has generated the most criticism, is the election of ministers, magistrates and judges by popular election; a form of election found in only a few countries in the world, such as Bolivia and the United States.

The difference with Mexico is that the election of judges will not be as in Bolivia and the United States, since the appointment of magistrates will be at the discretion of the executive branch, that is, in the hands of the new president. Claudia Sheinbaum (AMLO’s token) and Congress, where the ruling party has an absolute majority. This could bring the three branches of the Mexican state under the same partisan group.

Moreover, Mexico will be the only country in the world where all judges and magistrates, representing a total of some 6,500 authorities, are elected by popular vote.

The most serious aspect, according to experts, is that AMLO’s reform significantly reduces the requirements to become a Supreme Court justice. One of the major critics of the reform is Norma Pinathe president and one of the eleven justices of the Supreme Court, who, despite calling herself a progressive, agrees with the Mexican opposition that the reform is a direct attack on the separation of powers.

“The system that has been set up for the election of judges, because it implies that there is no preparation needed to become a judge, but only to become a lawyer; there is no preparation, there is no collegiality, and they are elected by popular vote after participating in a raffle. In other words, they are given a piece of paper. It will be luck to be a federal judge or magistrate in Mexico,” Piña explained in an interview for the BBC, weeks before the reform was approved in the Senate.

Piña said at the time that Mexico’s future depended on the reforms failing.

Under the reform, candidates for election as Supreme Court justices will essentially only need to have a professional law degree with a minimum grade point average of 8.0 and a 9.0 in subjects related to the position they are running for. In addition, they only need five years of professional experience in the legal profession.

The context in which the reform is being implemented is also not the best in institutional terms, since AMLO’s direct attack on the judiciary comes at a time when the President and the Supreme Court have clashed on several occasions, as it is the only power that, among other things, has blocked the reform. laws that expanded state participation in the energy sector and placed the safety of the citizens in the hands of the military.

The reform, which was just approved on Wednesday, September 11, already harms Mexico diplomatically and economically.

The most worrying case is AMLO’s willingness to sever relations with the US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazarwho sharply criticized the reform in X.

The US ambassador was particularly vocal in his opposition to the fact that AMLO’s proposed reform could “make it easier for cartels and other malicious actors to take advantage of inexperienced, politically motivated judges,” which could lead to economic and political “turbulence” in the neighboring country in the years to come.

Salazar’s prediction has in fact already come true. The reform has led to protests, a judicial strike and the devaluation of the Mexican peso, a logical step due to the fears of investors who no longer trust Mexico’s legal security.

The controversial approval of the ruling party and some “traitors”

Alice Galvanthe president and founder of Fundación Patria Unida, an independent and impartial organization, explained to VOZ that the judicial reform was approved amid extortion practices; because in the Senate the margin for the governing party, despite its majority, was small.

Given the situation, the ruling party took action against a section of the ‘dissidents’, who only needed the right ‘incentives’ to vote in favour of the reform: threats against their relatives, themselves and also benefits that are contrary to the interests of Mexico.

According to Galvan, the ruling party still needed a few votes and so “they extorted two senators, one from Movimiento Ciudadano and one from PAN, with arrest warrants against them and their families, so that they would betray and vote in favor of the reform of the judiciary.”

This is the reason for the Senate takeover, Galvan said, who described the break-in as an “unprecedented” event in Mexico’s democratic history.

“Yesterday an unprecedented event took place: many students and workers of the judiciary awakened their citizenship. They took over the Senate buildings to ask Morena for an open parliament in which the real reforms that the Mexican judiciary needs would be discussed with experts,” said the founder of Patria Unida.

Carlos Loret de Molaone of the most renowned Mexican journalists in the country, condemned the extortions applied by the ruling party against dissident senators.

Loret de Mola specifically explained the case of PAN senator Miguel Angel Yuneswho joined the ruling party to vote in favor of judicial reform.

“PAN Senator Miguel Ángel Yunes Márquez has requested leave because he suffers from a spinal cord disease and has left everything in the hands of his father, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares. President López Obrador and Morenistas have cited him a thousand times as an example of the mafia in power, as an example of the most rotten part of the Mexican political system,” Loret said, before explaining that the ruling party has managed to buy off one of the most discredited families in Mexico, the Yunes family.

“After being in hiding for days, Miguel Angel Yunes entered the Senate chamber with the step of a monarch, the Morenistas treated him like a king, some even applauded him standing, the Morena coordinator in the Senate Adán Augusto López got up from his chair to receive him in the hallway with a hug while the opposition shouted traitor, Morena on her knees before Yunes, honoring him. He was the thief, the murderer, the pedophile,” stated the Mexican journalist, recalling that, on repeated occasions, AMLO accused Yunes of being a mafia and corrupt politician.

But despite AMLO’s accusations against Yunes, the pact came about because the ruling party, according to Loret de Mola suggested to the “opposition” senator that he forget all the charges against him and the arrest warrants against his children if he were to vote in favor of the reform.

“He was even in the Morena bank, the extortion was working, and the PAN, responsible for the fact that Yunes was a senator, responsible for placing figures like Yunes, out of his mind, on the candidate list,” said the journalist, who then spoke about another case,that of Senator Daniel Barreda of Movimiento Ciudadano (MC).

In particular, the journalist said that the bureaucracy’s practices to extort Barreda are similar to those of Mexican drug cartels.

“Today, on the most important day, early this morning, they arrested the senator’s father in Campeche, a city governed by Morenista Layda Sansores. Because of this, Senator Barreda could not come to the session. They arrested his father today and the senator is with him, in the chamber in Campeche. Is that why 36 million people voted?”, asked the journalist, who provided clear evidence of how the separation of powers collapsed in Mexico on September 11, 2024.