Presidents are often defined by their first crisis, and Mexico’s new leader is facing a big one: a clash of democratic institutions that could fundamentally upend the country.
On one side is the judiciary. It has come out in full force against the governing party’s complete overhaul of the courts. Federal judges and some supreme court justices argue that the changes violate the constitution and could endanger the country’s democracy.
On the other side is the governing party, Morena. Its congressional leaders have vowed to charge ahead with their plans despite hundreds of legal challenges from the courts. They say the changes are needed to curb judicial corruption.
Next week may present a major test for the president: The supreme court will rule on whether to strike down key parts of the overhaul, setting up a direct confrontation between two pillars of government that, legal scholars say, has little to no precedent in recent Mexican history.
How President Claudia Sheinbaum navigates this moment will offer a window into how she wields her power – and what her vision for the country really is. These are questions that have lingered in the minds of many Mexicans since Morena swept the June elections.
Will the president – a scientist by training and a leftist to the core – pursue the aims of her party without giving an inch? Or will she show some flexibility?
And how much control does she actually have over the powerful figures within her own political movement, who control both houses of congress and are refusing to budge?
“This is a crisis that tests the authority of the executive,” said Ana Laura Magaloni, a legal expert based in Mexico City. “If she doesn’t handle it well she might lose control of the country’s direction.”
The overhaul of the courts was initially championed by Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It requires that nearly all the nation’s judges be elected. It also subjects them to review by a disciplinary board made up of elected officials, which critics worry will be a tool for exercising political control over the justice system.
López Obrador, Sheinbaum and their allies have argued that the redesign will help eradicate endemic corruption and nepotism in the courts. Congress pushed it through days before the former president’s term ended in September.
“We are building a true rule of law in our country,” Sheinbaum told reporters in October, adding that Mexico’s experiment “will be an example to the world”.
But in a country that just endured one of its most violent election campaign cycles in recent memory, with at least 41 killings of people who were seeking public office, many worry that making judges run for their posts will give organised crime and political actors more influence over how justice is done.
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For two months, thousands of workers in the federal court system have been on strike to protest against the overhaul. There have already been more than 500 legal challenges to the measure, and several federal judges have ruled in favour of suspending its approval and implementation.
Eight of the nation’s 11 supreme court justices said this week that they would step down from their posts rather than run for election next summer.
So far, the president and her allies have largely ignored the legal challenges.
In October, congress passed a Bill that would prevent any legal challenges to constitutional amendments, such as the judicial overhaul, on anything but procedural grounds. After most state legislatures approved that measure, the president published it in the government’s official gazette Thursday night, making it law.
Legal scholars say that could allow legislators to reshape the constitution without any judicial review, even from the supreme court.
Next week, the supreme court will consider a resolution to invalidate crucial parts of the judicial overhaul, which could set up a battle with the executive and legislative branches.
If eight of the 11 justices vote to strike down those elements, including the election of local and federal judges, they cannot legally take effect, legal experts said. Morena officials have already said that legislators would disregard such a ruling.
“A judge is not above the people of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference in October. This week, she called the supreme court resolution an inappropriate attempt by the justices to legislate.
If the court approves the resolution, the president will have two options, analysts say.
She could follow the lead of the hardline power brokers in her party and ignore it. Or she could heed it, and negotiate a way out of the dispute that achieves her party’s goals without rejecting the court’s authority.
Defying the justices would thrust the country into uncharted territory, legal scholars say.
“If the court makes a decision and the other branches disregard it, at that point we cease to be a constitutional democracy,” said Pedro Salazar, a scholar of constitutional law at the Law Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Accepting the ruling, on the other hand, “would defuse this conflict,” Salazar said. “It would be an act of democratic respect.”
Yet many argue that Sheinbaum and her Morena party have few incentives to compromise.
She campaigned for office promising to deliver just the kind of overhaul that legislators passed – and she won with the largest margin of victory of any president since Mexico transitioned to democracy in 2000. The governing bloc also secured effective supermajorities in both houses of Congress and most state legislatures and governorships.
“Morena won at the polls and has the right to change the way the judicial system works,” said Viri Ríos, a political analyst based in Mexico City. “To forget that is to forget how democracy works and what a democracy is.”
– This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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