Exceeding the two-thirds required supermajority, Mexico’s Senate has narrowly passed a constitutional reform package championed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). It promises to overhaul the country’s justice system — today among the world’s most corrupt and inefficient.
The broad package of reforms, introduced as “Plan C,” has attracted most attention for its sweeping changes to Mexico’s judiciary. Most controversial are those to the Supreme Court. Plan C will reduce its bench from eleven members to nine and reduce justices’ terms from fifteen to twelve years. It will also align their salaries with the president’s, which AMLO decreased by 60 percent after assuming office in 2018. Most importantly, the judicial reform dictates that justices — whether serving on the Supreme Court or at regional and local levels — will no longer be chosen by the president, but directly elected by popular vote.
The outcome of this overhaul remains uncertain to some. But critics, especially in Washington, are sure it’s bad news — and haven’t been shy about saying so.
AMLO’s third attempt at constitutional reform, Plan C — after the earlier plans A and B either failed to pass Congress or were blocked by the Supreme Court — is marketed as an attempt to root out corruption within the judiciary by holding judges accountable to the public, as opposed to the politicians and government agencies that appoint them. His detractors identify another, more sinister motive: to push the separation of powers in favor of the ruling Morena…
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Auteur: Tim Brinkhof
