How Independent Will Mexico’s Newly-Elected Supreme Court Be ?

Like the U.S.A., Mexico has three branches of its federal government – the legislative, the executive and the judicial.

And, like the U.S.A., Mexico has a Supreme Court.

In recent years the Mexican Supreme Court has become more powerful and independent, having ruled against both the executive and legislative branches.

On June 1st, Mexico held its first-ever judicial election. As part of that election, nine judges were elected to form the new Mexican Supreme Court, to be instated on September 1st.

Will this new court maintain judicial independence?

Who are the nine newly-elected justices of the Supreme Court?

The Chief Justice, or as they say in Spanish, Presidente de la Corte, is to be Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, who was the biggest vote-getter on the Supreme Court ballot, receiving over 6 million votes (6,195,000).

Aguilar, 51, is a lawyer and Mixtec Indian from the state of Oaxaca. Currently, he serves as indigenous rights coordinator of INPI, the Instituto Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas 
( National Institute of Indigenous Peoples). Aguilar has never served as a judge before.

Here is a list, in descending order of their votes, of the 9 newly-elected judges of the Mexican Supreme Court.

1. Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, currently an official of INPI. Received 6,195,000 votes.
2. Lenia Batres Guadarrama, Already on the Supreme Court, 5,802,000 votes.
3. Yasmin Esquivel Mossa, already on the Supreme Court, 5,000,310 votes.
4. Loreta Ortiz Ahlf, already on the Supreme Court, 5,012,000 votes.
5. Maria Estela Rios Gonzalez, former legal advisor to AMLO, 4,729,000 votes.
6. Giovanni Azael Figueroa Mejia, lawyer with constitutional law doctorate, 3,655,000 votes.
7. Irving Espinosa Betanzo, lawyer/Mexico City anti-corruption magistrate, 3,587,000 votes.
8. Aristides Rodrigo Guerrero Garcia, lawyer and former Mexico City official, 3,584,000 votes.
9. Sara Irene Herrerias Guerra, Head of human rights department of Attorney General, 3,268,000 votes.

It’s important to note that before the election, the MORENA party, which is the party of President Sheinbaum and the party that runs Congress, distributed papers to voters which listed judges on the ballot recommended by MORENA.

All nine winning judges, slated to serve on the new Supreme Court, were MORENA-approved, meaning it’s less likely that they are going to exhibit much judicial independence.

In fact, three of the judges (Batriz, Esquivel, Ortiz) were already on the Supreme Court, having been appointed to the Court by previous MORENA president AMLO. Another judge, Maria Estela Rios Gonzalez, is a former legal advisor to AMLO.

And, once again, the nine Supreme Court winners were all on the MORENA recommendation sheets.

AMLO, moreover, did not like the Supreme Court ruling against him, and it is AMLO who engineered the judicial reform before he left the presidency on October 1st, 2024, to be replaced by Claudia Sheinbaum.

You can see the concern that this judicial election could be a way for MORENA to get control of the judicial branch.