While at the federal level it is organized judicial elections (of judges, magistrates y ministers), which will be held next year, which will be graded by the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (TEPJF), others still need to be carried out at the state level, as mandated by the constitutional reform on the matter… However, in the states the courts local offices are incomplete or have provisional members.
According to the reform to Judiciary, in its transitory eighth, the Congresses State governments have 180 calendar days to approve their constitutions to carry out their own elections of local judges and magistrates.
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And as the deadline approaches, he Senate of the Republic has kept the plenary sessions of the Electoral Tribunals premises of the 32 entities in the countrywhich could create a risk for challenges to the elections of judges.
Currently, only 101 magistracies that integrate the Electoral Plenary Sessions are in office, while 11 magistrates are vacant in 10 federal entities and 33 people occupy magistrates with provisional appointments.
Future of magistrates
By the end of this year, the Senate of the Republic will not have appointed 59 of the 112 magistrates that should make up the Plenary sessions of the Local Electoral Courts, as provided in state legal frameworks.
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This indicates that 52.68% of the magistracy do not comply with the provisions of the Article 116 of the Constitutionwhich states that “the jurisdictional electoral authorities will be made up of an odd number of magistrates, who Camera of Senators It will be elected by two thirds of the members present, following a public call, in the terms determined by law.”
In this regard, the senator of Morena Saúl Monrealwho met with electoral magistrates from states such as Michoacán, Guanajuato and Mexicosaid that the problem is that “there are plenary sessions in the local courts that are not considering these vacancies, on the one hand, but they are also not meeting the quorum because in some rooms of local electoral courts there are five or three members and in some there are no more members.” most have one or two, that is, there is no majority to meet, which seems risky and serious to me and on the other hand it is not being contemplated.”
And he warned that this puts rights at risk political-electoral of the participants, because they will not have anyone to complain about the result of the election.
He said that the problem is that the headless plenary sessions will be joined by others whose magistrates conclude their duties in December “and are not even defined by the Senate and they are left with that legal loophole,” he said.
Appointments
However, the president of the Board of Directors of the Senate, Gerardo Fernández Noroña, reported that it will be next February, in the new ordinary period, when they will appoint the missing magistrates to complete the local plenary sessions.
“An agreement is already being built, we have it easy, because we (Morena“We have the two-thirds that are required, now we just need to agree among ourselves,” said the senator. Fernández Noroña.
He even pointed out that some magistrates asked to postpone their term to stay ahead, but the senators rejected it.
According to the analysis “Situation of the Magistrates in Local Electoral Courts in Mexico”, carried out by the magistrates themselves and in the power of 24 HOURS, Of the 32 local jurisdictional bodies, none are made up entirely of magistrates appointed by the Senate of the Republic, based on the number of assignments established in local legislation.
In 25 Courts, at least one magistrate has been provisionally appointed; while seven states do not have provisional magistracy in the Plenaries of their Courts.