Mexico is poised to amend its constitution this weekend to require all judges to be elected as part of a judicial overhaul championed by the outgoing president but slammed by critics as a blow to the country’s rule of law.

Mexico is poised to amend its constitution this weekend to require all judges to be elected as part of a judicial overhaul championed by the outgoing president but slammed by critics as a blow to the country’s rule of law.

The amendment passed Mexico’s Congress on Wednesday, and by Thursday it already had been ratified by the required majority of the country’s 32 state legislatures. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would sign and publish the constitutional change on Sunday.

Legal experts and international observers have said the move could endanger Mexico’s democracy by stacking courts with judges loyal to the ruling Morena party, which has a strong grip on both Congress and the presidency after big electoral wins in June.

  • BelgdoreEnglish
    274·
    4 days ago

    US Supreme Court Justices are not elected. They make a lot of political decisions beyond just upholding the status quo. There are a lot of US states that have judicial elections and they don’t have major crises because of it.

    • slickgoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      101·
      4 days ago

      Don’t kid yourself, the US Supreme Court is balls deep in politics. The situation where political parties can essentially buy a Supreme Court result for life is a disgraceful situation. That’s why the US is in such a terrible mess. Justice is not served, politics is.

      • BelgdoreEnglish
        131·
        4 days ago

        My point is precisely that the US Supreme Court is embroiled in politics. The notion that being appointed somehow insulates the justices from politics is absurd.

        Elections at least create some semblance of accountability to the voters.

        • slickgoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
          45·
          4 days ago

          I’ve made this point elsewhere. In Australia the Chief justices are appointed by the government based on a shortlist presented by the legal establishment. They are preeminently qualified and are above politics. Both sides of the political spectrum are fine with this system and it is not gamed.

          It is utterly non-controversial and the Australian people respect the institution. Tell me again how it is absurd to remove politics from a judicial system?

          • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
            101·
            4 days ago

            The same was said about the SCOTUS until recently, where it’s become very obvious it is political and has a ton of power to enact their political goals.

              • WanderingVentraEnglish
                31·
                3 days ago

                That’s just because your conservatives haven’t discovered not confirming justices. We used to have bipartisan consensus on judicial picks as well. Give it time as the other capitalist countries continue to decay and get more fascist. Relying on these moral codes and gentleman’s agreements doesn’t work once a party learns to disrupt the system.

                Obama literally picked a judge the opposition said was the only one they would pick and then they still didn’t. You can’t remove politics from these systems.

                • slickgoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  3 days ago

                  Your reply assumes that the rest of the world must follow the US example. That’s not necessarily true, although there is a bit of flirtation going on here and there with fascist populism, Western countries with Western values have managed to put a choke hold on the worst.

                  Also, loading the SCOTUS benches with partisan picks is not exactly a new thing. FDR was doing it for the Dems in the 1930s.

          • BelgdoreEnglish
            112·
            4 days ago

            If you believe anyone is above politics I have a bridge to sell you.

            • slickgoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
              31·
              4 days ago

              Well, there are degrees, aren’t there? Some judicial systems ban individual reproductive rights, allow corporations to be people and give criminal immunity to presidents, and some don’t.

                • slickgoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  3 days ago

                  Sure, then breathing is political. So is farting.

                  However, certain things are actively political and dangerous to people.

                  • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.mlEnglish
                    41·
                    3 days ago

                    If making a given ruling is political, it stands to reason that a contrary ruling would also be political. It’s not like slavery is political and abolition is apolitical, it’s just that one has a positive character and one has a negative character (in the mathematical sense).

                    Some things are dangerous to the people and political, some things are beneficial to the people and political. We should support a system that encourages judges to do promote the latter.