MEXICO´S GOVERNMENT IS THROTTLING THE RULE OF LAW / THE ECONOMIST

Claudia Sheinbaum’s folly

Mexico’s government is throttling the rule of law

Elected judges will be bad for governance and good for gangs

On the face of it, Claudia Sheinbaum has had a fine year. 

She won a landslide victory in June 2024, took office as Mexico’s president in October and has enjoyed sky-high approval ratings ever since. 

She has won praise for deftly handling Donald Trump’s trade belligerence. 

Her security policies, which stress better intelligence and detective work, are an improvement on those of her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

But Ms Sheinbaum is about to enact Mr López Obrador’s worst and most dangerous idea: a sweeping, populist reform of Mexico’s justice system that will undermine the rule of law, poisoning Mexico’s economic prospects and weakening its young democracy. 

On June 1st Mexicans will vote in the first of two rounds of elections to replace the judiciary from top to bottom. 

Every judge in the country will be chosen by popular vote, from lowly local magistrates to those who sit on the Supreme Court and powerful electoral tribunals. 

The old system of exams, nominations and appointments has been scrapped.

Only a handful of democracies (such as the United States) elect any judges at all. 

Mexico will be the only one to elect all of them. 

This is a terrible idea. 

Judges are supposed to uphold the law impartially. 

Answering to voters makes them more likely to uphold only popular laws. 

Judges are supposed to be experts in the law. 

Mexico’s new vetting process requires only a law degree, adequate grades and a willingness to submit to the new system. 

Many current judges are not standing, thus ceding the bench to novices and partisans. 

Decades of institutional knowledge and legal clarity are being tossed on a scrapheap.

Voting will politicise the courts, bringing the neutrality of their judgments into question. 

It will also make the courts a less effective restraint on politicians. 

This is particularly dangerous in Mexico, where Morena, the ruling party founded by Mr López Obrador in 2011, has become the supreme political force. 

Having first won power in 2018, Morena and its allies have majorities in both chambers of Congress. It controls most state legislatures. 

It has systematically dismantled checks and balances, weakening or eliminating most of the independent regulators in Mexico. 

Increasingly, Morena looks like the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico virtually unopposed for seven decades until 2000. 

The courts were the biggest remaining curb on Morena’s power, striking down several of its flagship policies in recent years. 

No longer.

The gift of the gavel

Making matters worse, Morena has sway over the process for electing judges. 

It controlled two of the three committees for vetting judicial candidates. 

Turnout is expected to be low, meaning the voters who show up are likely to be those mobilised by the party. 

This all but ensures that Morena’s favourites will be elected. 

A new disciplinary tribunal, also to be elected from the same Morena-friendly lists, will help the party keep the new judges in line.

The new system will not only hasten Mexico’s slide back towards de facto single-party rule. 

It is also a gift to gangsters, who already threaten and kill unco-operative judges. 

Judicial elections will give drug lords an easier way to influence the courts, by deciding who can run in towns where they are strong, and by getting out the vote. 

They are probably fielding their own candidates, as they already do in local elections.

The rule of law is essential for democracy. 

It also underpins prosperity. 

Private firms will not build factories in Mexico if they believe the courts will not enforce their rights. Investment is already falling. 

What’s more, the elected judiciary may well constitute a breach of Mexico’s free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada. 

That deepens the peril for Mexico’s export-led economy, already under assault by Mr Trump.

Ms Sheinbaum has shown no inclination to change course: she pushed through the implementing legislation in October. 

Improving the process for the second round of judicial elections due in 2027 would be mere tinkering. 

She once had a reputation for pragmatism.

She may be remembered as the leader who dismembered the rule of law in Mexico.