The countdown to the approval of the Judiciary Reform has begun. The Constitutional Points Commission of the Chamber of Deputies has outlined the route for its vote starting on August 15, almost at the same time as the rest of the constitutional initiatives sent by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in February. The controversial reform, which proposes, among other aspects, the election of judges, ministers and magistrates by popular vote, will be drafted starting on August 9, while waiting for the open parliament forums organized by the legislature to end with this promise. The findings will be considered for the preparation of the project, which must be approved before the end of the current legislature on August 31. With this, the project can be inherited by the next Congress starting on September 1 so that it can be put to a vote of the plenary session, now with the necessary qualified majority ensured, at least in the lower house.
The board of directors of the commission in charge of the process of reforms to the Constitution plans to give the green light this Thursday to the agreement that outlines the path to approval of the judicial reform. The document also contemplates the release of the other 17 proposals for constitutional amendments that make up the package sent by the president on the anniversary of the Constitution. On April 30, the last day of the regular period of the session, Morena rescued the reforms with the drafting of the opinion, in which he did not make any changes with respect to the one sent by López Obrador. The recent agreement also establishes that no amendments will be made to the original proposals until they are discussed in a plenary meeting. “No objections to the draft orders will be presented at the meetings of the Commission; if applicable, they can be presented at the legal opportunity before the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies,” the document reads.
The president’s proposals were shelved, however, and were given new vigour by the June 2 election results, which saw the ruling party, Morena, and its allies (PT-PVEM) sweep the polls. In the lower house, the Let’s Keep Making History coalition is shaping up to have a valuable qualified majority – two-thirds of the vote – by September 1. This gives them absolute power to amend the constitution without needing the support of the opposition. In the Senate, it is expected that only two seats will separate them from the 86 votes needed for reforms to pass the legislature.
“The draft opinions of the initiatives related to the judiciary and its related areas will begin to be prepared on August 9, in order to be considered in the work of the national dialogues that will be held during the course, and their presentation and “regulatory circulation” will take place no earlier than August 15,” reads the agreement that is being prepared to be approved by the board of directors this Thursday and ratified in the plenary session of the commission with a morenista majority on August 1.
The call for the August meeting raised alarm about the vote on judicial reform. However, Ignacio Mier, coordinator of Morena’s representatives, put an end to speculation. He published on the social network X, “Let it not be misunderstood: the time for amending the draft of the constitutional reform in judicial matters will begin on August 9, when the national dialogue ends.”
The reforms with the most complexity involve the electoral reform, for which the deadline will also be extended without exceeding August 31, since its opinion depends on two more commissions. The proposal, already rejected by Congress in 2022, contemplates the disappearance of the National Electoral Institute (INE) to create the National Electoral and Consultative Institute (INEC), with greater possibility of government interference and more compressed powers; the number of electoral councilors is reduced from 11 to seven and their term from nine to six years. Another controversial reform is the one that gives the military full control of the National Guard, whose origins are of a civilian nature, through the National Defense Secretariat.
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