Mexico’s Judges Vote to Strike, Opposing Overhaul of Legal System
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants judges elected, not appointed. Court workers have already walked out to protest his plan, which critics call a power grab.
Federal judges voted on Monday night to go on strike across Mexico, protesting President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s proposed overhaul of the country’s judicial system. The judges will join thousands of other court employees who went on indefinite strike earlier in the day over the contentious policy changes.
The moves reflect rising tensions over Mr. López Obrador’s push for the most sweeping changes to Mexico’s legal system in decades. He and his supporters want thousands of Mexico’s judges, including those on the Supreme Court, to stand for election instead of being appointed based on qualifications and specialized training.
Mr. López Obrador has defended the plan, arguing that the ultimate goal is to rid the judiciary of “corruption and privileges.” Critics say the change could result in people with minimal legal experience being elected to judgeships.
The president “has lost it,” said Juana Fuentes, the national director of Mexico’s association of federal judges and magistrates, which organized the strike vote. “If this bill passes, we will be creating a regime of absolute power concentrated in one single person.”
The vote means that on Wednesday, more than 1,400 judges and magistrates will join the federal court workers who walked off the job on Monday.
Labor Organizing and Union Drives
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- World of Warcraft: More than 500 workers in the team behind World of Warcraft, one of the most popular video games in the world owned by Microsoft, have voted to unionize.
- Amazon: A fight to form the first union at an Amazon warehouse in Britain came to an end, as organizers of the effort fell short by just 28 votes.
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Mr. López Obrador is hoping to push his measures through in September, his last month in office, when Congress reconvenes. With the combination of lawmakers from his Morena party plus allied lawmakers, the president is expected to have a large congressional majority.
But while he appears to have the votes needed in Congress to pass the policy changes, large pockets of resistance have coalesced in recent weeks.
Critics of Mr. López Obrador argue that the proposals amount to a power grab, aimed at eroding checks on the executive branch, after the Supreme Court developed into a bastion of opposition to the president. If the system is changed, all 11 judges on the Supreme Court, as well as thousands of other federal and state judges, could potentially be forced to step down.
“We have been working for 10, 15, 20 years to become judges or magistrates, and suddenly they tell us that those years we invested are no longer going to be of any use,” said Víctor Flores, the secretary general of the Federal Judiciary Workers Union in Toluca, a city in central Mexico. The election of judges by popular vote, he added, would no longer ensure that people who have built their careers in the judiciary could become judges.
The empty courtyard of a federal court building on Monday in Mexico City.Credit…Fernando Llano/Associated Press
Court workers, including clerks and other support staff, decided to organize their nationwide strike after learning that Mr. López Obrador’s proposals would not undergo significant changes before being discussed next month in Congress. Last year, hundreds of judicial employees carried out a 13-day strike against proposed budget cuts, included in the government’s initiative, that would negatively affect employee benefits.
Nearly all 55,000 federal court workers are expected to join the strike in the next few days, said Mr. Flores, meaning that hundreds of courthouses and tribunals across the country would be closed. In Mexico State, where Mr. Flores is based, about 1,500 people have already joined the strike, with some locking entrances to their workplaces with chains.
“If the workers don’t show up for work, well, obviously judges and magistrates can’t issue rulings,” Mr. Flores added. However, exceptions would be made to allow rulings on “urgent matters,” including cases where people’s lives are at risk, Ms. Fuentes said.
The striking judges and court workers are hoping to draw attention to the proposed overhaul, which critics say would roll back decades of efforts to bolster judicial independence in Mexico.
“There is an atmosphere of uncertainty, sadness and disappointment,” said Anallely Reyes, a federal clerk who joined the strike in Naucalpan, an industrial hub in Mexico State. “The whole country is going to be harmed by electing people who do not know about these issues. It has taken us years to know the laws, to know how they should be applied.”
Many judicial experts acknowledge that Mexico’s legal system has problems, like slow-moving cases and inept investigations that allow many crimes to go unpunished. But critics contend that Mr. López Obrador’s overhaul would do little to address such systemic issues, or could even make them worse by politicizing vast parts of the judicial system.
“Above all, this is about vengeance,” said Víctor Oléa, the president of Mexico’s national bar association, referring to Mr. López Obrador’s frequent attacks on the judiciary. “It’s a way of going back in time by taking political control over the judicial system.”
Critics say that if the overhaul is approved in its current form, candidates aligned with Mr. López Obrador and his protégé, Claudia Sheinbaum — who was elected president in a June landslide and takes office in October — are likelier to win judicial elections than critics of the government would be.
“What we want is for there to be a true justice system in the country,” Ms. Sheinbaum told reporters on Monday when asked about the strike. “Now, the judiciary will have more autonomy when judges, magistrates and ministers are elected. Why? Because a judge will be elected by the people — just like the president.”
Experts in Mexico and abroad, however, have warned that the proposed changes would threaten judicial independence, violate international legal standards and undermine the rule of law.
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