Eight of the country’s 11 supreme court judges will stand down over reforms supported by President Claudia Sheinbaum
Eight of Mexico’s 11 supreme court judges have submitted their resignations after controversial judicial reforms, the top court has said.
In a move that has sparked diplomatic tensions and opposition street protests, Mexico is set to become the world’s only country to allow voters to choose all judges, at every level, starting next year.
The eight justices – including president Norma Pina – declined to stand for election in June 2025, a statement said, adding that one of the resignations would take effect in November and the rest next August.
The announcement came as the supreme court prepares to consider a proposal to invalidate the election of judges and magistrates. President Claudia Sheinbaum, however, has said that the court lacks the authority to reverse a constitutional reform approved by congress.
What would be a real world problem on voting for those judges?
It biases them towards catering to public demand instead of being a neutral arbiter of justice.
Want to keep your job as judge? Better not be ‘weak on crime’ etc…
It biases them towards catering to public demand instead of being a neutral arbiter of justice.
But they’re biased anyway, towards whoever has the power to take away their job. They’re never neutral arbiters of justice.
In a well run country that requires a supermajority of some kind of council picked by different groups like some representatives for the judges, others picked by the legislature, etc. which avoids any group having full control of the courts.
Especially in rural areas where they can just legislate criminal justice policy from the bench.
That’s what the founding fathers thought but they end up being biased to whomever gets them the seat. Additionally, if the country decides to become more progressive or conservative, judges either have to be flexible based on public opinion, or they need term limits to make room for change. It’s broken.
Electing judges will get them involved with party politics. They’ll have to spend time campaigning, and there will be less experienced judges.
Good point. Thank you
Interesting question, and as lots have already commented, judges are possibly biased to whoever keeps them in power.
Perhaps a lottery amongst the pool of potential judges (lawyers or whoever it may be)
Sortition democracy is one of the cooler ideas anarchists have come up with as a way to replace representative democracy.
Elected judges cannot ever truly be impartial judges. The Rule of Law in a democracy means that politicians are subject to the Law as much as anyone else. But electing judges turns them into politicians with the power to give themselves more power without checks and balances.
Basically it removes the independence of the judiciary, and in the process erodes democracy. Ironically.
I think the US has shown that unelected judges aren’t inherently impartial.
The US is broken for many reasons.
The Canadian Supreme Court, by comparison (in fact all judges in Canada) are merit based appointments. So far we’ve managed to avoid political appointments, for the most part. Although current conservative rhetoric is starting to target the courts.
Most functioning western world countries do not have partisanship in their courts.
Like most of what the US does, it’s been perverted by money. Most other functioning democracies run a judicial system that’s independent of the administration and at least reasonably impartial.
Yes, unelected judges are not inherently impartial.
However, elected judges are unanimously awful.
There is a distinction there. The former is capable of impartiality.
That is a good point.
My opinion is, not based on Mexico, that the public is uninformed in the majority of decisions. Basically delegating power to the common person, especially technical decisions to the public will mean the most popular choice will win mostly, not the best choice. That is basically populism in a nutshell. Imagine you had to choose in this example a food policymaker, the one is the charismatic Willy Wonka that will say he wants everyone to eat sweets all the time, he wants you to eat whatever you want to eat, give you choices by subsidising all the sweets, worse he will attack Dr. Grouch, because he wants to tell you what to eat, force additional taxes on sweets to try and guide people to eat more gross vegetables, in fact basically force you, the poorest to have no choice but to eat these “healthy” foods. And unfortunately Dr. Grouch will agree, he wants you to eat "healthy food because in a couple of years you and your children will reap the benefits.
Ok, then why don’t we apply this logic to democratically electing politicians?
This example was exactly the issue Socrates had with democracy actually, saying that a demagogue would be elected as a president or leaders of government the majority of the time. His solution was just as vague, so let’s just say there is no perfect system yet. All have their benefits and drawbacks.
Look it is messy, my feeling is you vote or don’t vote for a party based on their policy and track record, but after elections they have the will of the people to act, so they should then focus on the technical issues of government by being guided by their election promises, policy and the country’s constitution to ensure that minorities aren’t discriminated against for example.
By this logic, we shouldn’t democratically choose any government positions.
This example was exactly the issue Socrates had with democracy actually, saying that a demagogue would be elected as a president or leaders of government the majority of the time. His solution was just as vague, so let’s just say there is no perfect system yet. All have their benefits and drawbacks.
Look it is messy, my feeling is you vote or don’t vote for a party based on their policy and track record, but after elections they have the will of the people to act, so they should then focus on the technical issues of government by being guided by their election promises, policy and the country’s constitution to ensure that minorities aren’t discriminated against for example.
Democracy is undoubtedly better than what came before, just sayin.
Agree, but there are many flavours of it. For example we began the discussion on how Mexico extended their democracy to now include the judicial branch of government, others can be how they vote, for example electoral college in USA, ranked choice voting in some European countries like France or my country, South Africa, we have proportional representation and cannot even vote for our president
Despite the obvious common root in “populism” and “popular”, I don’t think that’s a fair “nutshell” description of populism at all.
The central core of populism is opposition to an elite ruling class. Right wing populism tends to attack education and expertise which does fit loosely with your description, but left wing populism is more focused on wealthy elites. Wealth has always been a terrible proxy for merit or the ability to rule.
To be against populism you either have to disagree that we are largely ruled by a class of elites, or think that being ruled by elites is not a bad thing. Anyone that thinks elites are not in control of the economy and political system in the US is borderline delusional. Anyone who thinks the elites got there by merit need to learn a lot more about figures like Elon Musk, Trump, or the Clintons.
Well I was not even focused on the USA in my reasoning of why in Mexico it is a bad thing to extend the democratic process to the election judicial branch of government or generally every decision to the public.
The USA has issues in their democratic elections, gerrymandering in certain states being one, the electoral college giving most or all the electoral votes to the winner and not a portion in relation to votes, propaganda being openly discussed on “entertainment” news channels. Then there is even lobbying that is allowed, politicians being able to buy and sell stock based on insider information, paid speaking events.
And the ruling by elites will in any system be an issue, even oppression by the majority can be an issue, that is usually why you have a good constitution, that lays the foundation of how government should work, the different spheres and how it should protect the most vulnerable in society. It has mechanisms to protect against an interest group gaining power to basically twist the system to their will and finally the last resort is the democratic vote of the people to ensure accountability.
After these mechanisms have failed there is no pretty answer on how to easily get back to a fair system. In my country South Africa, where we had a system that disenfranchised the majority of the population, I am glad that we had a bloodless coup d’etat and now we have one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, but even that wasn’t enough again from a connected small majority from almost ruling the country. Luckily in our last election, in the first time in 30 years the ruling party lost their majority and now we have a 10+ party coalition ruling majority government, and in my opinion things are going good, but we know how fragile our democracy is and try to be as engaged as citizens can be.
Thank you for a solid answer.
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1,700?
Wow!
Democracy bad.
More like democracy good, but justice is not a popularity contest.
Justice is a democratic process, what the hell are you talking about? Justice has only ever come after democratic forces pushed it to the forefront and struggled against established power to make it happen.
The rich can’t control you as easily
The concern is actually the opposite.
Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony
Democracy is the only viable system of government. That said, turning judges into politicians is probably not what we want, and there’s a lot of uncertainty in the philosophical literature about how best to deal with the judicial branch in general.
Who said the position must be political? Under the current usa system, the supreme court is nominated by politicians and decided by politicians. I wouldn’t call it functional currently.
Instead, examine a state like Washington that votes for many judge positions, with fixed terms and no political affiliation. Seems to be working better than the federal system of appointments.
So yes, democracy is best.
I would prefer that, yes. I suppose the worry is that at a federal level the positions could become politicized (a Supreme Court seat wields a tremendous amount of power — more than any senator). We can imagine a campaign to elect conservative judges.
Honestly, this is a stupid thing to do. Democratically determine how you want to run your country by enacting a constitution and laws, then have a judiciary that isn’t beholden to transitory politics to interpret those laws. If they aren’t being interpreted the way you want, then fix the laws or impeach the judges.
But electing the officials that decide how the laws are interpreted is a fasttrack to fuckery. It’s a terrible way to run a democracy.
It’s really hard to see your point when the American judicial branch is so obviously beholden to party politics and special interests. Judges can be voted on a lifetime appointment by a simple majority of 51 senators, who are likely to represent less than half the voting population of the country. I really think it’s time for clunkier and more archaic forms of democracy to make way for a more direct and agile way to run the government. At the rate we’re going, generations-long problems like climate change will be addressed when it’s too late.
Afaik, they can be impeached, can they not? And as I said in another comment, somehow the US has managed yet again to completely subvert a part of democracy that nobody else seems to have a problem with.
With a 2/3 vote in the Senate… good luck with that.
It’s a terrible way, except all the others that have been tried.
each system has its pros and cons. They should be tailored to the specific needs of that specific system. So say, if you’ve got a problem with unelected officials getting corrupt and throwing wrenches in the rest of the system, then it might be beneficial to rework the laws to more easily remove said officials.
I love this. We shouldn’t be beholden to the president to select judges if and when they die or resign. Limit their terms and let people elect them. Take note US.
The US already has elected judges, they’re so incredibly bad we barely even bother to write about it anymore. I know people talk about who are they beholden to? But that’s the irrelevant question actually. The real problem is a judge that’s elected has to campaign. And there’s no greater source of corruption in all of politics than campaigning. No amount of patronage will ever equal the amount of corruption that comes from going around and begging rich people for money so you can be elected.
Talking about Supreme Court. They are not elected, they are appointed. For sure, lots of corruption in campaigning. You know what’s more corrupt? Campaigning for an audience of one. You may not call it campaigning because it happens behind closed doors but these judges don’t just get appointed based on their merit.
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MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
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Information for The Guardian:
Wiki: reliable - There is consensus that The Guardian is generally reliable. The Guardian’s op-eds should be handled with WP:RSOPINION. Some editors believe The Guardian is biased or opinionated for politics. See also: The Guardian blogs.
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