Mexico’s judiciary now serves many masters

Mexico’s Supreme Court, with crosses and floral arrangements reading “Rest in Peace,” placed there by opponents of the judicial reform. Image credit: ZUMA Press / Alamy.

by Jacques Coste.

Many analysts have argued that Mexico’s recent judicial elections removed the last check on presidential power because several candidates with clear connections or affinities with Morena won, and hence the Supreme Court justices will be aligned with the ruling party. But this is only part of the story. The scenario is even worse. Mexico’s judiciary will respond partially to the interests of the executive branch, but it will also respond to the objectives of different regional elites, such as local political leaders, businesspersons, law firms, and organized-crime groups.

The reason why so many analysts believe that Mexico’s judiciary will exclusively respond to the president’s wishes is that they are taking the PRI regime as a model. However, there are two problems with this assumption.

First, during the PRI regime, the Supreme Court - and the judicial system as a whole - wasn’t as subsumed into the power orbit of the executive branch as is generally thought. As historian Pablo Mijangos argues, while it is true that the post-revolutionary Supreme Court lent constitutional legitimacy to the actions of the sitting president, it is also true that the justices enjoyed broad autonomy when deciding the majority of cases, which did not clearly concern the executive branch.

In other words, during the PRI regime, the judiciary supported the hegemonic party in controversies directly linked to the interests of the sitting president. But the way judges resolved cases between common citizens depended on a combination of factors, such as the ideology and capabilities of the judges, money and power differentials between the parties involved, and relationships (or lack thereof) between the citizens and PRI members or government officials who could help them pressure the judges. This will be the case once again in Mexico - but with an additional layer of complexity. And this is where the second problem with the assumption that the president will control the entire judiciary comes in.

The popular election of judges opened the door for powerful individuals and groups to influence the electoral process through different means (such as money, grassroots voter mobilization, and political support) and at different stages (the selection committees, the campaigns, election-day mobilization strategies, etc.). According to press reports, governors, lawmakers, local politicians, businesspeople, and criminal groups illegally or irregularly supported candidates to win their races.

Of course, all these elites will expect the candidates they helped to now return the favor and protect their interests through judicial means. Therefore, day-to-day cases that have little to no relationship with the government’s priorities will be decided by judges whose interests are heavily linked to different elites.

Thus, after the judicial election, the situation will be worse than expected by many analysts. When legal controversies affect the government’s strategic interests, the executive branch will be capable of influencing the judiciary through its allies in the Supreme Court and the Disciplinary Tribunal (whose function is literally disciplining judges who commit “immoral acts,” a standard so ambiguous that it can be interpreted in any way according to the government’s interests). In cases not directly related to the presidential agenda, other members of the ruling coalition, local politicians, economic elites, and criminal groups will be able to influence local or federal judges according to their individual or collective interests.

Meanwhile, the judicial reform didn’t give common citizens any new mechanisms to access justice. According to Morena’s arguments, corruption, influence-peddling, impunity, and high costs will be magically solved by the judicial elections - despite only 13% of registered voters participating. But the reality is that while the ruling party claimed the reform’s objective was to “bring justice closer to the people,” it will actually bring it closer to the elites.