U.S., Mexico spar over López Obrador's radical plan for judicial system

Security personnel stand at a federal court as unionized federal court workers gather to strike over reforms in Mexico.

Aug. 23, 2024 Updated 10:23 AM PT

MEXICO CITY — With less than six weeks left in office, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador could be acting like a lame duck.

Instead, he’s using his final days in power to try to radically reshape the country’s judicial system, pushing a controversial proposal that has sparked a cross-border war of words and this week prompted thousands of judges and other court employees to walk off the job in protest.

López Obrador has proposed sweeping changes under which federal judges, including members of the Supreme Court, would lose their jobs, with their replacements elected by popular vote.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stands at the National Palace during a ceremony in Mexico City.

He says the reform is needed because the courts, which have ruled against several of his top legislative efforts, are corrupt. Critics say there is little evidence of that, and insist putting judges on the nation’s highest courts up for election would politicize the judiciary and give even more power to López Obrador’s ruling Morena party. Having swept elections in recent years, the party would almost certainly have an outsized influence over which judges win.

The president’s proposal has spooked markets, with the peso losing value against the dollar and U.S. banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Fitch Ratings warning that the plan carries financial risks for Mexico and could cripple bilateral trade.

U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar, who has had a friendly relationship with López Obrador, said in unusually terse criticism Thursday that the overhaul would “threaten the historic trade relationship we have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.”

“Direct elections would also make it easier for cartels and other bad actors to take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges,” he added.

Salazar, an attorney by trade who served as Colorado’s attorney general, warned that Mexico could become like Iraq, Afghanistan or other countries “without a strong, independent and corrupt-free judiciary.”

“Based on my lifelong experience supporting the rule of law, I believe popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy,” he said.

On Friday, López Obrador hit back, calling Salazar’s comments “disrespectful.”

Mexico, he said, would send a diplomatic letter to the U.S. complaining that the ambassador’s comments “represent an unacceptable interference, a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.”

Mexico’s federal judges and magistrates voted to stop working starting on Wednesday morning for an indefinite period to protest the proposal. Outside of the shuttered headquarters of the federal judicial branch in the nation’s capital, they have gathered daily, waving Mexican flags and signs that read: “The judiciary is an honest power.”

Many said that their protest was geared not only to save their jobs but also to protect the independence of the nation’s courts.

“The strike was the only option left to us to be able to defend ourselves as workers, to defend our jobs, our professional careers that we have been building for years,” said Roberto Diaz Cantu, 42, an attorney who has worked on staff in the judiciary for 14 years.

“But it is also to defend democracy, the separation of powers and the rule of law,” he continued. “We hope that people understand that an independent, capable judiciary is more important than a presidential whim.”

López Obrador first proposed the reform in February, after several of his signature legislative initiatives, including major changes to the country’s elections institute, were hamstrung by Supreme Court rulings. The populist leader derided the judges on the nation’s highest court as being part of a “power mafia” and said they and other members of the judiciary should be elected just like the president or senators.

López Obrador and his allies have also tried to blame the judiciary for Mexico’s high rates of impunity in criminal cases. But experts tie impunity mainly to corruption and sloppy work by police and prosecutors, two branches of law enforcement that López Obrador has not proposed reforming.

For many months, the president’s desired overhaul appeared dead because his party didn’t have the votes needed in Congress to make needed constitutional changes.

Claudia Sheinbaum greets supporters during a rally in Guadalajara.

That changed in June when Morena won in a landslide in nationwide elections widely viewed as a referendum on López Obrador’s six-year term in office. Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City and López Obrador’s political protege, beat her nearest competitor in the election for president by 32 points.

By the time she is sworn in on Oct. 1, Morena’s coalition will have a supermajority in the Chamber of Deputies and a simple majority in the Senate. It will control 24 of 32 governorships and boast supermajorities in at least 21 of the 32 state legislatures.

The new Congress takes office Sept. 1. López Obrador hopes to take advantage of one month of a new, Morena-dominated Congress to push through the judicial reform.

Sheinbaum, whom analysts are watching to see how closely she sticks to López Obrador’s agenda, has said she supports the overhaul, too. She said at a news conference this week that financial institutions should not worry.

“We are going to have a better justice system in Mexico,” she said. “Their investments will be even more protected.”

Orlando Ruiz Rodriguez, a 37-year-old worker at the Supreme Court, said he was disappointed that Sheinbaum was not acting with more independence. “It is a shame that the new president does not exercise her leadership and allows the current president to give her orders and allow herself to be controlled,” he said. “Is she that afraid of President López Obrador?”

Ruiz said he feared that the proposed changes to the judiciary could take Mexico back to its pre-democratic era, when a single political party controlled most of the state for more than 70 years.

“If we do not fight this battle, our country will go back decades in terms of justice and we will again be in the hands of a few who make decisions based on whims,” he said. “It is true that improvements are needed, that reforms are needed to help us strengthen the judicial system, but reforms are one thing and wanting the total destruction of the autonomy of the judiciary is another.”

Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.