Mexico Has Never Voted for Judges, and Now It's Electing 2,700
MEXICO CITY—Mexicans voted Sunday in nearly 2,700 judicial races for federal and state judges, a new practice that the government says will stamp out corruption but that opponents fear will give the ruling party control of the judiciary and empower candidates with criminal ties.
Nearly 7,800 candidates participated in contests that will make Mexico the only country in the world to elect all its judges. In the U.S., many states elect judges, but federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
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CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Chile prosecutes individuals alleged to have stolen babies
It's a dark chapter in Chile's history. During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990, thousands of babies were stolen from their biological mothers and sold into adoption, mainly to foreign couples from the United States and Europe. In Chile, they're known as 'The Children of Silence.' And now, for the first time in the country's history, a Chilean judge announced he was prosecuting individuals alleged to have stolen babies in the country. Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, a Santiago Court of Appeals judge in charge of the investigation 'determined that in the 1980s' there was a network of health officials, Catholic priests, attorneys, social workers and even a judge who detected and delivered stole babies from mainly impoverished mothers and sold them into adoption to foreign couples for as much as $50,000, according to a Monday press release by Chile's judiciary. The investigation, which focuses on the city of San Fernando in central Chile, involves two babies who were stolen and handed over to foreign couples, according to the judiciary statement. According to the statement by Chile's judiciary, the ring allegedly focused on 'abducting or stealing infants for monetary gain' with the purpose of 'taking them out of the country to different destinations in Europe and the US.' The judge charged and issued arrest warrants for five people, who he said should remain in pre-trial detention for 'criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct,' the release said. The Chilean government has made an extradition request to Israel for a former Chilean family court judge who now lives there and was allegedly involved, the release added. CNN contacted the judiciary to determine if those involved have legal representation and how they respond to the allegations, but there has been no response so far. The judge ruled that the statute of limitations does not apply in this case because as 'these are crimes against humanity committed under a military regime and must be punished in accordance with the American Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.' The investigation was announced Monday, one day after Chilean President Gabriel Boric said that a task force he created last year to investigate cases of stolen babies has issued its final report. Following its recommendations, Boric said the Chilean government will 'create a genetic fingerprint bank that will provide additional means of searching for origins and enable family reunification for the many babies who were stolen for so long and given to foreign families.' Constanza del Río, founder and director of Nos Buscamos (We Are Looking for Each Other), a Santiago NGO dedicated to reuniting families of stolen babies said that she feels cautiously optimistic because actions by countries like Chile to find the truth about the stolen babies have been 'very slow and something that revictimizes the victims.' Del Río, herself a victim of an illegal adoption, filed a lawsuit in 2017 demanding an investigation by the Chilean government. Authorities named a special prosecutor, but the investigation went nowhere, she said. Another prosecutor took the case for five years only to declare last year that he hadn't been able 'to establish that any crimes have been committed,' according to Del Rio. President Boric has said creating a task force proves his government is serious about the issue and has spoken publicly about it, recognizing the systematic theft of babies back then as a fact. There could be tens of thousands of cases. The theft of thousands of babies in Chile has been documented for over a decade by non-governmental organizations. Since 2014, CNN has reported about multiple cases where people stolen as babies have reunited with their biological mothers after DNA tests proved they were, in fact, related. Constanza del Río says Nos Buscamos alone has built a database that includes about 9,000 cases and has helped reunite more than 600 parents with their stolen children. Ten years ago, Marcela Labraña, the then-director of the country's child protection agency (SENAME, by its Spanish acronym), told CNN her agency was investigating hundreds of cases but suspected there could be thousands more. 'This is no longer a myth. We know nowadays that this happened, and it was real. It's not a tale that a couple of people were telling,' Labraña said at the time. CNN's Cristopher Ulloa contributed reporting.
Associated Press
3 hours ago
- Associated Press
Lula expands Brazil's affirmative action quotas for Indigenous and Black communities
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday signed a new law to expand the country's affirmative action policies, increasing the quota for government jobs reserved for Blacks from 20% to 30% and adding Indigenous people and descendants of Afro-Brazilian enslaved people as beneficiaries. The changes apply to candidates applying for permanent and public employment positions across Brazil's federal administration, agencies, public foundations, public companies and state-run mixed-capital companies. As approved by Congress, the quota will be revised in 2035. 'It is important to allow this country for one day to have a society reflected in its public offices, in the Prosecutors' Office, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the Attorney-General's Office, in the Internal Revenue Service, everywhere,' Lula said at the presidential palace in the capital, Brasilia. 'We still have few women, few Black people, almost no Indigenous people.' Brazil's first law on racial quotas for government jobs was approved in 2014 by then President Dilma Rousseff, and it extended to public administration positions an affirmative action policy that was in place for access to state-run universities. Brazil's government said in a statement that Blacks and mixed-race people held 25% of top government jobs in 2014, a figure that rose to 36% in 2024. 'Still, Black people are under-represented in the public service and hold lower-wage positions,' the government added. Management and Innovation Minister Esther Dweck said the new law was needed due to a low number of new government jobs being opened for candidates in the last decade, when the previous quota was in place. 'We could not reverse the scenario of low representation (for minorities) in the public service,' Dweck said in a speech Tuesday. Brazil's government said 55% of the country's population is made up of Black or mixed-race people. It added that more than 70% of Brazilians living below the poverty line are also Black or mixed race, while only 1% of people from those ethnicities are in leadership positions in the private sector. ____ Follow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at
CNN
a day ago
- CNN
Mexican president hails first judicial election a ‘complete success' after just 13% turnout
Around 13% of Mexicans likely turned out to vote in the country's first-ever judicial election, Mexico's INE electoral authority said on Monday, as the government hailed a successful process while analysts said the low turnout could undermine an already controversial reform. President Claudia Sheinbaum estimated that some 13 million of around 100 million eligible voters cast ballots on Sunday to elect some 2,600 judges and magistrates, including all nine Supreme Court justices. Counting is set to conclude on June 15, but INE officials estimated the turnout at between 12.57% and 13.32% using a calculation based on several samples taken across the country. Sheinbaum called the process a 'complete success,' citing a free vote and a frugal campaign at a morning press conference. 'Everything can be perfected. We will draw conclusions from yesterday to make improvements for 2027,' she said, pointing to another vote in two years that is scheduled to fill over 1,000 more judicial positions. Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said that 'the voting took place in a climate of peace and tranquility across the length and breadth of the country.' 'Yesterday's turnout at the polls met expectations,' she said. 'It was an innovative process that generated interest among the participants.' Voting in Mexico is not mandatory and there is no minimum turnout required to legitimize an election. Pollsters had warned of poor turnout over boycott calls by the opposition and the complexity of voting for a large number of candidates. Goldman Sachs' chief Latin America economist, Alberto Ramos, said in a note that the low turnout took away from the process' legitimacy, and that the pre-selection process and logistical organization were 'fraught with controversy.' 'The vast majority of the roughly 3,400 candidates were largely unknown, many have limited legal experience and some questionable credentials for the seats they are seeking,' he said. Bradesco analyst Rodolfo Ramos said he thought the turnout was surprisingly low, 'considering Sheinbaum's high approval rating and the fact that the majority of Mexicans were in favor of directly voting for judges.' Sheinbaum, who inherited the judicial election project from her predecessor and mentor, former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has backed the vote as a way to democratize justice and root out corruption and nepotism. However, critics say it could remove checks and balances on the executive power and allow for organized crime groups to wield greater influence by running their own candidates. The run-up to the vote had been dominated by a scandal over some of the candidates, including a convicted drug smuggler and a former lawyer of drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman. Late on Sunday, Mexico's Specialized Prosecutor's Office for Electoral Crimes said it had received 23 reports of possible electoral crimes related to the elections of nearly 900 positions at the federal-level judiciary.
