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WHO’S AFRAID OF MEXICAN DEMOCRACY?  
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Kurt Hackbarth
September 8, 2024
Jacobin
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_ Mexico’s judiciary is infamous for favoring oligarchs and other
unsavory interests. MORENA’s judicial reforms aim to fix this by
introducing democratic elections for judges — a move that has the US
and global business elites in a panic. _

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shown with
president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

 

Following its landslide victory
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Mexico’s presidential elections, the MORENA coalition is wasting no
time in getting to work. Even before president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum
takes office on October 1, the new Congress is taking up a package of
constitutional amendments
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by outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), flexing
the muscle of a two-thirds qualified majority that allows the
president’s party to pass such measures virtually on its own. And
the first one up is already drawing the ire of corporate media
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foreign powers alike: a judicial reform requiring direct, democratic
elections for the entire federal judiciary.

On August 22, US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar released a
statement
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reforms. It was, to say the least, a curious one. After mentioning
Iraq and Afghanistan — two countries the United States has recently
invaded and occupied — as examples of countries that lack
independent judiciaries, he proceeded to aver that “popular direct
election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s
democracy.” Following the exposition came the threat: “I also
think that the debate . . . will threaten the historic trade
relationship we have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in
Mexico’s legal framework.” If you know what’s good for you, in
so many words, lay off.

AMLO, in fact, did not know what was “good for him.” “How are we
going to allow the US ambassador, with all due respect . . . to opine
that what we are doing is wrong?” he asked at his press conference
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following Tuesday. While denying that the ambassador would be
expelled, he explained that the relationship with the embassy was
“on pause.” The same, he added, for the Canadian embassy, whose
attitude in seconding the United States had been “pitiful . . . like
a vassal state.” Both countries, he concluded, “would like to
interfere in matters that only concern Mexicans. As long as I am here,
I will not allow any violation of our sovereignty.” The battle lines
had been drawn.

Ken’s U-Turn

The ambassador’s letter and accompanying press conference
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surprising in light of the fact that, two months prior, he had said
the exact opposite. The judicial reform “is a Mexican
decision,” he stated on June 13
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“It is not our decision. We, the United States, cannot impose our
opinions in those matters.” On July 24, he reaffirmed
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“the model [of the reform] will be the decision of the Mexican
government, of the Mexican legislature. I’m not going to get
involved in what should be done.” Just days before his U-turn, he
was still saying
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the judicial reform represented “an opportunity to do good
things,” and that the United States was “not in a position” to
tell Mexico what to do.

Following his blunt club of a statement, Salazar continued to twist
rhetorically in the wind. Faced with blowback not only from the
president but from a public historically disinclined to look favorably
on US interventionism, he first tried backing off, contending that his
comments had been made in a “spirit of collaboration” as
“partners,” and that he had “the greatest willingness” to
dialogue on the issue. The faux détente, however, entirely missed the
point that the judicial reform was not an issue for which
“dialogue” with the United States was either requested or
appropriate. Thus Salazar returned to the attack, doubling down on the
Iraq and Afghanistan point in an interview for Milenio TV
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asserting that the reform violated the “spirit of the USMCA
agreement” — NAFTA’s replacement — knowing full well he could
not say that it violated the actual agreement. By September 3, he had
been reduced to arguing that well, yes, the United States also elects
judges, but only at the state level (where most cases are tried) and
only in a few states (actually forty-one
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in whole or part), and that whether or not the press in attendance was
“with him” or not, they were always welcome at the embassy.

Washington Calling

Such an abrupt volte-face in posture clearly was not hatched in Mexico
City but in Washington. The question, of course, is by whom. In the
absence of power emanating from the Joe Biden White House, other power
centers within the federal government have been rushing to fill in the
void, stepping over each other in the process.

As a consequence, Latin American policy in recent months has been all
over the place. When Ecuador invaded the Mexican embassy
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April in flagrant violation of international law, the tepid State
Department response was subsequently “corrected” by National
Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. In the case of the Venezuelan election
in August, Antony Blinken rushed to congratulate
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candidate Edmundo González only for spokesperson Matthew Miller
to walk it back
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few days later. And now the Mexican ambassador — already the subject
of a front-page _New York Times_ hit piece
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2022 for supposedly getting “too close” to AMLO — has been
forced to fall on his sword and contradict his own statements made
within the course of a week.

One candidate is the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has
been running an operation
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smear AMLO through pliant media voices in response to his limiting of
its powers on Mexican soil. Another is the Blinken hawks at the State
Department or one of the other intelligence agencies. A more obvious
source for the change in discourse, however, is the business
community, which has long made use of friendly judges and abused legal
proceedings such as _amparo _(a form of preliminary injunction) to
further its own interests in strategic areas such as banking
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and water
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block legislation that would seek to regulate them. For all the lurid
warnings of how a democratically elected judiciary would open the door
to greater cartel influence, the genuine concern of multinationals is
rather that it would close the door on monied interests, their bribes,
and the historically cozy relationship they’ve enjoyed with justices
that has virtually guaranteed decisions in their favor.

When AMLO fought to increase public control over Mexico’s energy
sector in the face of a slew of _amparos _and lawfare, Salazar —
a longtime advocate for big energy
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in and out of government — was also trundled out
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his “serious concerns” and threaten that the United States’
differences on the matter “might not have a solution.” The law to
rein in private energy was eventually thrown out by the Supreme Court
in February in a contorted process
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required the votes of just two of its eleven justices, on the grounds
that it violated “free competition” and “sustainable
development.” The ambassador-lobbyist had won. AMLO was determined
that it would not happen again.

Judges Behaving Badly

The furor over the energy reform was just the tip of the iceberg. Even
before turning into a machine for striking down laws (seventy-four so
far
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this administration) on the barest of pretexts, Mexico’s judiciary
had already become infamous as a cocktail club characterized by
excessive salaries, perks, ethics scandals
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and nepotism [[link removed]] at
the service of the oligarchy and other unsavory interests. This has
taken multiple forms, such as forgiving tax debts, as in the case of
the 640 million peso
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million) “adjustment” granted to Totalplay, the telecom company
owned by Mexico’s third-richest person and notorious tax evader
Ricardo Salinas Pliego. It has also taken the form of
get-out-of-jail-free cards for wealthy suspects to walk away scot-free
or, at worst, be sent home to face trials from comfortable house
arrest; a macabre sport in Mexico has been waiting to see which new
well-heeled individual will be sent through the revolving door,
usually on Saturdays (hence the term _sabadazo_), when there is less
media coverage and when government offices are closed.

Among the long list of high-profile beneficiaries are names such
as Emilio Lozoya
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accused of triangulating money from the Brazilian company Odebrecht to
the 2012 campaign of Enrique Peña Nieto; Rosario Robles
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funneling millions in social development funds through universities in
the Peña administration in what was known as the “Master
Scam”; Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca
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the former governor of Tamaulipas who had been stripped of his
immunity to face money laundering and organized crime charges, only
for the Supreme Court to step in and quash the procedure, allowing him
to flee to Texas; and most recently, Mario Marín
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the former governor of Puebla, accused of ordering the torture of
journalist Lydia Cacho for revealing the story of his presumed
participation in a child pornography and trafficking ring. The
treatment of such notables is particularly galling in a context where
thousands of Mexicans without adequate connections and bank balances
languish for years on end in prison before their cases ever come to
trial.

Making matters worse has been the erratic and underhanded behavior of
the gowned class in recent months. In May, it was revealed that Norma
Piña, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, had held a private
meeting
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magistrates from the Federal Electoral Tribunal together with
Alejandro Moreno, the president of the opposition Institutional
Revolutionary Party.

The meeting was doubly troubling: first, for involving a leader of the
political opposition, and second, for including several of the very
magistrates who would be deciding the validity of the upcoming 2024
presidential election. According to WhatsApp conversations leaked from
the gathering, Piña explicitly introduced Moreno
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her “ally” and “friend.” Instead of resigning, which the
seriousness of the conflict of interest easily warranted, Piña has
led the charge against the judicial reform, in recent days even
leading the Court to join a judicial-branch work stoppage
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protest.

As if that were not enough, a pair of federal judges attempted
to wield the _amparo _injunction
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Congress itself, ordering it to freeze its consideration of the reform
and, in the event it were approved, to refrain from sending it to the
state legislatures for ratification — a ludicrous and patently
illegal judicial overreach, in short, that only reinforced MORENA’s
argument of the need for root-and-branch reform. In the midst of all
this broke a scandal
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Lourdes Mendoza, columnist for _El Financiero_ newspaper, sending
her column on the reform to Supreme Court justice Margarita
Rios-Farjat for her “green light” — a timely reminder of the
chummy relationship between the courts and the corporate press, all in
the pursuit of common interests.

The Fear of a Good Example

As a first step toward cleaning up the courts, the judicial reform
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for direct elections for half of the federal judiciary in 2025,
including the entire Supreme Court, and the other half in 2027. All
current justices will be eligible to run. Elections will be
nonpartisan, with a prohibition on the use of private financing;
instead, candidates will be given free television and radio airtime to
make their case. Technical committees will be set up in both houses of
Congress to ensure that potential candidates meet basic requirements
of education and experience. The terms of Supreme Court justices will
be reduced from fifteen to twelve years. Gender parity will be
enforced, together with a limit on excessive trial lengths. Excessive
salaries, perks, and pensions will be eliminated. The use of
the _amparo _to block anything and everything will be reined in.
And, crucially, an independent oversight board will be established
with powers to sanction, suspend, or even remove corrupt judges from
the bench.

And while the judicial reform has become a lightning rod, it must be
understood in the context of the other constitutional amendments the
Mexican congress will be considering in the upcoming months, including
greater autonomy for indigenous and afro-Mexican peoples; greater
wage, housing, and pension protections; and a ban on fracking,
open-pit mining, and GMO corn for human consumption. No wonder the
multinational business community and their spokespeople in the
embassies are worried, not only due to the limits the reforms will
place on their ability to act with judicial-backed impunity but also
for the fear that such a precedent could spread to places like the
United States, which is just beginning to undertake its own, far
more modest attempt
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reform an unchecked and overweening Supreme Court. “The fear of a
good example
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journalist and activist Eugene Puryear puts it, indeed.

_Kurt Hackbarth is a writer, playwright, freelance journalist, and the
cofounder of the independent media project “MexElects.” He is
currently coauthoring a book on the 2018 Mexican election._

* Mexico
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* Judicial Reform
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* Democratic Elections
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* Oligarchs
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