Judicial reforms championed by Mexico’s outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and supported by his new successor have sparked diplomatic tensions with the United States and rattled financial markets.
Here are the main points of the proposals, which will be debated in the ruling party-dominated Congress on Sunday:
what’s the plan?
López Obrador wants the Supreme Court and other judges and magistrates to be elected by popular vote, arguing that the judiciary now serves the interests of political and economic elites.
Candidates would be proposed by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.
Currently, Supreme Court justices are nominated by the President and approved by the Senate.
Judges and magistrates are appointed by the Federal Judicial Council, an administrative body.
These proposals have been supported by the newly elected President Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office on October 1. Under these proposals, the number of Supreme Court judges will be reduced from 11 to 9.
His tenure will be reduced from 15 years to 12 years.
A new body will be created to monitor judges in a country where the rate of escape from accountability for crimes is 99 percent, according to non-governmental organisation Impunidad Cero.
This system would be similar to that in Bolivia, where members of the High Court are elected by popular vote.
Elections are used to select judges in some states in the United States. In Switzerland, judges are selected by voters at the local level.
Why the controversy?
Opposition politicians, judges, and judicial staff say these reforms would politicize the justice system and compromise the separation of powers between branches of government.
Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Prosecutors, also expressed “deep concern” about the plan’s “broader impact on judicial independence across Mexico”.
“I urge the authorities to carefully reconsider the proposal, giving due importance to the human rights guarantee of judicial independence,” she wrote on the social media platform X.
Human Rights Watch urged lawmakers to reject these “dangerous proposals,” saying they would “severely undermine judicial independence and violate international human rights standards.”
The New York-based human rights group expressed concern that the reforms would also end restrictions on civilian law enforcement work by the military.
“Given Mexico’s long history of serious human rights violations and official concealment of them, legislators should take steps to strengthen human rights protections, not weaken them,” it says.
What will be its diplomatic outcome?
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar warned that the changes would threaten trade relations between the neighboring countries, which “depend on investor confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.”
He told reporters that these reforms could pose “a major threat to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.”
In particular, they “could make it easier for cartels and other bad actors to take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges,” Salazar said.
Canada, which is a member of major free trade partnerships with the United States and Mexico, has said investors are concerned.
“They want stability, they want a judicial system that works even when there are problems,” said Canadian Ambassador Graeme Clark.
In response, López Obrador announced a “pause” in relations with the American and Canadian embassies, and criticized the ambassadors’ statements as “interventionist”.
Why is the market nervous?
Several investment firms have warned that curbing the independence of the judiciary would impact the resolution of disputes between the government and the private sector.
The changes would “increase uncertainty” about the legal operating environment, British consultancy firm Capital Economics said in a note to clients.
“The politicisation of the justice system may raise concerns about whether disputes between businesses and government can be resolved fairly,” it says.
Since Sheinbaum, a close ally of López Obrador, won a landslide election victory on June 2, the Mexican peso has fallen by about 16 percent against the dollar.
Ramsay Gutierrez, co-director (investments) at asset manager Franklin Templeton, told AFP the drop reflected “concerns about the country’s economic stability… as well as foreign investors’ perception of Mexico as a risk.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
