Mexico Mexican president puts controversial judicial reform into effect

Despite harsh criticism, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has signed a controversial judicial reform into law. With Obrador's signature on Sunday (local time), Mexico is the only country in which judges will be directly elected in future.

Critics fear that this could politicize the judicial system and that elected judges could be influenced by the powerful drug cartels. The outgoing left-wing president, on the other hand, had presented the reform as necessary to clean up a "rotten" judicial system that primarily serves the political and economic elite. The newly elected President Claudia Sheinbaum, who will succeed López Obrador as head of state on October 1, also supports the reform.

The project has caused diplomatic tensions with important trading partners such as the USA and Canada in recent weeks. A parliamentary session to approve the reform last week had to be aborted and rescheduled after angry demonstrators stormed the Senate building.

Influencing the judiciary

With the new law, even the judges of the Supreme Court and other higher courts will be directly elected in future. Critics complain that this will jeopardize the mutual control of constitutional bodies and thus the democratic system of separation of powers.

According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, no other country has a direct election of all judges. Without strong safeguards, the election process for judges is susceptible to influence by organized crime.

US Ambassador Ken Salazar warned in the run-up to the adoption that the planned reform threatened democracy in Mexico and could enable criminals to abuse "politically motivated and inexperienced judges" for their own purposes. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch had warned of an erosion of judicial independence.