Mexicans elect their judges under shadow of crime, corruption

NZ Herald

3 days ago

'We are not very prepared,' said Lucia Calderon, a 63-year-old university teacher. 'I think we need more information.'
In the western state of Jalisco, 63-year-old housewife Maria Estrada said she used her 'intuition' as she did not know the candidates.
Experts were concerned that the elections would politicise the justice system and make it easier for criminals to influence the courts with threats and bribery.
While corruption already exists, 'there is reason to believe that elections may be more easily infiltrated by organised crime than other methods of judicial selection,' Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told AFP.
Hundreds of opponents of the reforms marched through Mexico City waving flags and banners with slogans including: 'Hands off our democracy' and 'No to electoral fraud'.
The elections send the judiciary 'to its grave,' said Ismael Novela, a 58-year-old company worker.
'It was the last counterweight we had against the totalitarianism of the executive branch.'
President Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the need for the judicial reform, insisting on the eve of the vote that only those who 'want the regime of corruption and privileges' to continue were against it.
Just after polls closed, she called the vote a 'complete success'.
'For the first time in history, almost 13 million Mexican women and men exercised their right to decide the new ministers, magistrates and judges,' Sheinbaum said in a video message posted to social media.
The run-up to the vote was not accompanied by the kind of violence that often targets politicians in Mexico.
But 'it is logical that organised criminal groups would have approached judges and candidates who are important to them,' said consultant Luis Carlos Ugalde, a former head of Mexico's electoral commission.
Rights group Defensorxs has identified around 20 candidates it considers 'high risk,' including Silvia Delgado, a former lawyer for Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman.
Another aspiring judge, in Durango state, spent almost six years in prison in the United States for drug crimes.
Voters were tasked with choosing around 880 federal judges – including Supreme Court justices – as well as hundreds of local judges and magistrates. Another election for the remainder will be held in 2027.
Candidates were supposed to have a law degree, experience in legal affairs and what is termed 'a good reputation,' as well as no criminal record.
To do a good job, voters 'would have to spend hours and hours researching the track record and the profiles of each of the hundreds of candidates,' said David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego.
He believes that most of the corruption in Mexico's judicial system is in law enforcement agencies and public prosecutor offices.
'If you can avoid being prosecuted, you don't have to worry about the judge,' said Shirk, who heads the Justice in Mexico research project.
The judicial reforms were championed by Sheinbaum's predecessor and mentor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who frequently clashed with the courts before stepping down last year.
The main reason for the elections seems to be 'because Lopez Obrador had a grudge against the judges,' Shirk said.
– Agence France-Presse