How Mexico’s Judicial Overhaul Compares to Other Countries
Thousands of striking judges and court workers. A diplomatic spat with the United States. An exceptionally powerful leader vowing to defy his critics.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico is seeking to push a huge reorganization of his country’s judicial system through Congress. He wants nearly all of Mexico’s more than 7,000 judges to be elected instead of appointed, saying the changes are needed to instill trust in a judiciary viewed by many Mexicans as a bastion of corruption, influence-peddling and nepotism.
The proposed measures could produce one of the most far-reaching judicial overhauls of any major democracy. Relatively few countries allow judges to be elected on a significant scale — examples include the United States, Switzerland and Bolivia — but none to the degree that Mr. López Obrador is proposing, according to legal scholars.
“I feel 100 percent confident that this is anomalous on the international scale, no matter how you swing it,” said Mitchel Lasser, a law professor at Cornell Law School who has written about the different ways of selecting judges around the world.
Critics of the proposal contend the plan would do little to fix problems like graft and impunity. Instead, they argue, the overhaul is designed to enhance the power of Mr. López Obrador’s nationalistic political movement.
Tensions around the proposals are spilling into the streets of the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country as protesters try to stymie the plan.
Still, the president and his allies are seizing the moment in a bid to win approval for the measures in the last weeks of Mr. López Obrador’s administration before he leaves office in October.
Here is what to know about Mexico’s proposed judicial overhaul.
What would the measures do?
The wide-ranging proposals would change the way judges are selected throughout Mexico’s judiciary, shifting to a system where candidates for judgeships must stand for election instead of being appointed based largely on a battery of tests, qualifications and training.
Nearly all of Mexico’s more than 7,000 judges, including those on the Supreme Court, and at the federal, state and local levels, could be affected the measures, making the overhaul one of the most sweeping of its kind attempted anywhere in the world in recent decades, according to legal scholars.
The new measures would apply to the 11 justices currently on the Supreme Court; 1,635 federal judges and magistrates; and more than 5,700 judges at the state and local level. Long lists of requirements to become a judge would be eliminated, especially at the federal level, opening the way for people who simply have a law degree and a few years of legal experience to run.
There are, however, some notable exceptions to electing judges in Mexico’s proposed overhaul. The measures would not apply to military judges, or judges involved in land conflicts or specific disputes between administrative agencies and citizens. Such exceptions account for a small fraction of Mexico’s judges.
The proposals would also reshape the Supreme Court, which had become a target of Mr. López Obrador’s ire in recent years after issuing rulings thwarting some of his plans. Its number of justices would be reduced to nine from 11 and their term limits shortened to 12 years from 15. In some cases, the salaries and benefits of justices could be also be reduced in a bid to cut costs.
Additionally, the policy changes would create a Tribunal for Judicial Discipline, whose members would also be elected by popular vote and have broad powers to investigate and possibly even fire or impeach judges and Supreme Court justices. The tribunal’s decisions would be final and not subject to appeal.
How does Mexico’s plan compare with how other countries select judges?
The measures have the potential to make Mexico’s judicial system an outlier among democratic countries. Relatively few democracies rely on popular elections for selecting judges; the United States may be the most prominent example, with many states allowing voters to choose judges.
But the American system of electing judges has long perplexed other countries, which seek to shield judges from the popular will and bolster judicial independence. Some legal scholars in the United States also question whether judicial elections at the state level should serve as models for other countries.
“America has one of the most politicized judiciaries in the world,” said Lydia Tiede, a professor of law at the University of Houston, noting howthe American Bar Association, has figured among those calling for a shift away from judicial elections.
Still, the election of judges in the United States also does not apply to the entire federal judiciary, where judges are still appointed by the U.S. president.
Switzerland allows judges to be elected at the local level by popular vote, but federal judges are elected by the country’s Parliament. In Japan, Supreme Court justices are selected by the government, but then reviewed in a popular referendum every 10 years.
“This is virtually unprecedented in the form that Mexico is proposing,” said Ms. Tiede, referring to the scale of the measures.
Mr. López Obrador’s allies in Congress acknowledge that the measures are sweeping. But they argue such profound changes are needed to make the judiciary more responsive to all Mexicans.
“Ours will be the first country to elect everybody, to elect federal judges, court ministers, everyone,” said Gustavo Fernández Noroña, the incoming leader of the Senate. “It will be unique.”
The closest parallel to what Mexico’s president is proposing is Bolivia’s experience with electing judges after enacting a new constitution in 2009. But even in Bolivia’s case, the changes didn’t apply to the entire judiciary, focused instead on how some of the most powerful judges can be elected by popular vote instead of being selected by Congress.
Choosing from lists of candidates created by the national legislature, voters in Bolivia can elect high court judges; members of the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal, which rules on the constitutionality of laws; and members of the Magistrates Council, a body that appoints and dismisses judges.
The experiment in Bolivia has drawn widespread criticism both at home and abroad. Political leaders were able to get judges sympathetic to their views elected to such powerful positions in the judiciary, then used the courts to go after their opponents. Power struggles have also led to delays in Bolivia’s judicial elections.
“There’s a generalized conclusion in the country, even in the ruling and opposition parties, that the reform has contributed to the deterioration of the judicial system,” said Vladimir Peña, a political analyst in Bolivia. Opinion surveys, he added, frequently place the judiciary as the country’s most disapproved institution.
When could the measures be approved and implemented?
The leaders of Mr. López Obrador’s party, Morena, are seeking to push the measures through Congress in September, the final month of the president’s six-year tenure. After winning landslide victories in a general election in June, the Morena party is relying on large majorities in both chambers of Congress.
While voting on the measures in Congress could start as early as next week, the time frame for when voters would be able to elect the country’s more than 7,000 judges remains hazy.
Beside being passed by both houses of Congress, the measures would have to be adopted by a majority of state legislatures. Then, all 32 states would need to change their constitutions and choose either to organize elections in 2025, or wait until 2027. Leaders in Congress have also discussed implementing the changes gradually, with a large portion of the judiciary up for election in 2025 and the rest in 2027.
“It is such a profound reform that it requires gradualism at the federal level,” said Hamlet García Almaguer, a Morena congressman who helped design part of the proposal.
Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia; Eve Sampson from New York; and Miriam Castillo from Mexico City.