2023-05-10 23:01:00
The proposal made by the President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorto advance with a constitutional reform for citizens to vote directly for the members of the Supreme Court generated a debate on the division of powers, with the ruling party accusing the highest court of annulling laws voted in Congress and with the opposition pointing to the Executive for seeking to concentrate powers.
The president’s initiative was communicated this Tuesday at his daily press conference, after the highest court annulled last Monday some parts of a reform promoted by the ruling party that made restrictions on electoral processes more flexible, ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
Without getting into the underlying issue and arguing violations in the way in which the legislative process was carried out, nine of the 11 judges of the Court invalidated changes to two laws that regulated the participation of officials in campaigns and official propaganda.
Specifically, they annulled the modifications approved last December that allowed officials to demonstrate during campaigns “in use of their freedom of expression” and expanded the possibility of promoting government management during the time prior to an election.
In the opinion of the opposition, these changes empowered the Government to interfere in the electoral processes and tip the balance in its favor, although the left is emerging as the favorite to remain in power, while for the Government the electoral reform strengthens democracy and the ruling of the Court against some of its articles constitutes a “constitutional violation”.
“Article 17 of the Constitution is the one that regulates access to the right to Justice, and in the third paragraph it clearly states that the duty of the courts is to resolve the merits of the controversies and not the formalities. So, the decision of the Court violates this constitutional provision,” Deputy Hamlet García Almaguer, from the pro-government National Regeneration Movement (Morena), told Télam.
“They should have analyzed both the form and the substance of the discussion. When they are limited only to the form, they get involved in rules that from our perspective cannot be subject to constitutional control, such as the deliberation mechanisms of Congress”, added the legislator, who is also a lawyer specializing in constitutional and electoral law.
The decision of the Supreme Court on the electoral reform called “Plan B”, due to the fact that the original project was discarded by the Senate for not reaching a qualified majority of two thirds of the votes, is for the Government a violation of the separation of powerssince the court does not have “popular standing” to restrict the constitutional powers of Congress.
“The Executive Power is elected by the people, the Legislative is elected by the people, and both appoint the ministers of the Court and those gentlemen who are now part of the supreme conservative power are dedicated to hindering the transformation of the country to sustain the old regime, of corruption and privileges”López Obrador pointed out.
Within this framework, the president announced that he plans to promote “let the people elect the ministers” of the highest court of Justice, as part of a new package of constitutional reforms to be presented in September 2024, in the brief period in which the new formation of the two Chambers of Parliament designated in the elections of June 2 of that year coincides with the mandate of the current president, which expires on October 1.
If successful, it would not be the first time that a similar formula exists in Mexico: in the Constitution of 1857, of liberal ideology, it was established that citizens with the right to vote (men over 21 or over 18 if they were already married) elected delegates who in turn appointed the members of the Supreme Court.
At that time, they were in office for six years, instead of the current 15 years of the ministers who reach the court after being appointed by the President and then endorsed by two thirds of the Senate.
“The proposal will be to elect them directly, it will surely have a nomination phase. Perhaps both the Executive and the Legislature will propose lists of candidates. And the second phase can be the election opened by the citizens. And this is to clarify what is already happening inside the court, in which there is a conservative wing, identified with the right, and a liberal wing identified with the left.”, said the deputy García Almaguer.
The current composition has a majority of seven ministers proposed by former presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, including the president of the court, and four nominated by López Obrador.
“It seems important that the ministers of the Court are elected because they do not represent the sense of society, of the people of Mexico. And if they are elected, they are already due to the people. Today they are due, above all a majority of them, to interest groups, to those who supported them in their careers to reach the Court,” César Cravioto Romero, a pro-government senator, told this agency.
“The Judiciary needs a total and organic reform”indicated to Télam Aníbal García Fernández, a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and exemplified it with the need to modify that the president of the Supreme Court in turn leads the Federal Judiciary.
This situation has also occurred since last year in Argentinawhen the head of the Supreme Court of Justice, Horace Rosattiin turn remained as president of the Council of the Magistracy, after the highest court declared the balance between the technical and political members of the body unconstitutional in December 2021.
García Fernández also stated that the polls show that Mexican society has a “quite critical” vision of the Judiciary and, in this context, he recalled one of the controversies with López Obrador when the president presented a law so that no member of the Public Administration earn more than the president himself “and it was some judges who filed injunctions” to reverse that regulation.
“And now the Supreme Court throws itself the power to make decisions that are political and begin with a stronger judicialization of politics”said the analyst, a member of the Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics (Celag), about the latest ruling against the electoral reform.
On the contrary, for the leader of the opposition National Action Party (PAN), Marko Cortés, López Obrador’s announcement of a direct election for the members of the Supreme Court it is “a threat” to those ministers and an “attack” on the Constitution.
“The threats to ministers make it clear to us that the only project of this government is to accumulate power in the hands of a single man, annul the division of powers, destroy those who do not comply with their whims and take the path towards a dictatorship,” he said. on his Twitter account.
“Enough of the attacks on the Constitution! Enough of the delusional proposals to destroy institutions and distract from the serious national problems! ”, He pointed out.
The truth is that the decision of the Supreme Court does nothing more than deepen the confrontation between López Obrador and the court
The Court has yet to rule on another part of the reform that reduces the staff and budget of the National Electoral Institute (INE), an independent entity in charge of organizing the elections and which the president accuses of being expensive and of having tolerated fraud in the past. .
Meanwhile, in April, the court limited the participation of the military in public security tasks, by annulling the transfer of a police force to the Army as López Obrador sought.
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