Mexico President's Judicial Reforms Set For Showdown In Congress

Mexico City, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2024) Controversial proposals by Mexico's outgoing president to allow voters to elect judges face a final hurdle Tuesday in Congress, despite mass opposition street protests, diplomatic tensions and investor jitters.

Lawmakers in the legislature's upper house, the Senate, began discussing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's judicial reform plan before a vote that could be held later in the day or tomorrow.

The leftist leader, who will be replaced by close ally Claudia Sheinbaum on October 1, argues that the courts serve the interests of the political and economic elite, calling the judiciary "rotten," corrupt and rife with nepotism.

"What most worries those who are against this reform is that they will lose their privileges, because the judiciary is at the service of the powerful, at the service of white-collar crime," Lopez Obrador said at a news conference.

Thousands of people, including court employees and law students, demonstrated over the weekend against the plan, under which even Supreme Court and other high-level judges, as well as those at the local level, would be chosen by popular vote.

"This does not exist in any other country," said Margaret Satterthwaite, United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

"In some countries, such as the US, some state judges are elected, and in others, such as in Bolivia, high-level judges are elected. If this reform passes, it will place Mexico in a unique position in terms of its method for judicial selection," she told AFP.