Mexico City (AP) – Protesters in Mexico City blocked entrances to Congress on Tuesday over proposals that would allow judges to run for office.
A mix of court workers, students and other critics chanted and strung ropes across the entrances to the lower house of Congress.
Many workers, including those at the Supreme Court, have gone on strike to oppose constitutional reforms proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party, which they say would politicize and unprofessionalize the judicial system.
In the current system, judges and court clerks working as assistant judges gradually rise to higher positions based on their experience. But under the proposed changes, any lawyer with minimum qualifications could run, and some candidates were decided by drawing names out of a hat.
The government claims the courts are corrupt, while critics say it is a presidential power grab and a blow to the independence of the judiciary.
The ruling Morena party has the two-thirds majority in Congress needed to approve the reforms. The leader of the party’s congress, Rep. Ricardo Monreal said the vote will go ahead, but perhaps not in the official congressional building.
Monreal said he would not abandon the reforms, and said lawmakers might be called to sit in a hotel or convention center farther from the city center.
“This reform is moving forward,” Monreal said in a recorded statement. He asked the lawmakers not to try to barge into the Congress headquarters, saying “we don’t want to provoke any incident”.
One of the protesters, Javier Reyes, a 37-year-old federal judicial worker, vowed to stay in Congress as long as it lasts.
“The majority party could take control of the judiciary, and that would effectively be the end of democracy,” Reyes said.
Mexico’s courts have long been plagued by corruption and lack of transparency, but in the past 15 years they have been reformed to be more open and accountable, including converting many closed-door, paper-based trials to more open, oral arguments. form.
Voices both at home and abroad say that the new changes could mean a setback in cleaning up the courts. However, the changes also include a time limit for judges to decide many cases, to combat the tendency for some trials to drag on for decades.
López Obrador said last week that he had suspended relations with the US and Canadian embassies after the countries raised concerns about the proposed reform of the judiciary.
Analysts, judges and international observers fear the courts would be stacked with politically biased judges with little experience. The planned reform has caused large protests and strikes, as well as widespread criticism from investors and financial institutions.
Last week, US Ambassador Ken Salazar called the proposal a “risk” to democracy that would jeopardize Mexico’s trade relations with the United States. López Obrador apologized for the ambassador, saying he violated Mexico’s sovereignty.
After Morena and its allies won an overwhelming majority in the June 2 election, López Obrador has promised to press ahead with other constitutional changes that would eliminate most independent regulatory and oversight agencies.
