On September 15th, a few hours before his participation in the annual Grito Ceremony, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) signed the constitutional judicial reform. The signing was filmed and AMLO was accompanied by President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum. Here is a photo of the two after the signing:
The constitutional reform was published September 15th in the Diario Oficial de la Federación, the official gazette of the Mexican government, which makes it law. (Links here and here).
The reform amends the Constitution of Mexico. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, in which amendments are placed at the end, when the Mexican Constitution is amended, it is simply changed in the text. That means you have to make sure the version of the text you are referring to is updated. The Mexican Constitution has been in effect since 1917 and has been amended over 500 times. In contrast, the U.S. Constitution has been in effect since 1789 and only has 27 amendments (and the first ten of them, the Bill of Rights, were made at the same time). The Mexican Constitution is much easier to amend.
This judicial reform changes the Supreme Court, reducing the quantity of its justices from 11 to 9, and reducing each justice’s term from 15 to 12 years.
The biggest change in the reform is the election of judges. In the United States, judges at the state level are elected, and in Bolivia high-level judges are elected.
Now Mexico is the first country to elect all its judges at all levels. That’s about 7,000 judges.
The first elections under the new system are scheduled for June 1st, 2025, to elect about half of the country’s judges. The other half of the new judges are to be elected as part of the regular 2027 mid-term elections.
Mexico is about to become the first country in the world to elect all its judges. How is that going to work out?
In the next few years, the world has a chance to see exactly how it will work out.
I am thinking this is going to reduce freedom in Mexico more than anyone realizes.