Protesters against judiciary overhaul plan urge Mexican president to 'respect democracy'

MEXICO CITY -- Protestors took to the streets across Mexico on Sunday in the latest opposition to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's proposed judicial overhaul and other moves by the governing party that critics say will weaken democratic checks and balances.

Demonstrators rallied in Mexico City as well as in Michoacan, Puebla, Leon, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Veracruz and other states to voice worries about changing the judiciary, particularly making judgeships subject to election. Many protesters are also upset by a proposal to do away with independent regulatory agencies.

In the capital, throngs of people, many of them federal court workers and judges on strike, ended their march outside the Supreme Court building in the heart of the city, waving flags reading “Judicial independence” and “Respect democracy."

“Right now, we're protesting the reforms, but it's not just the reforms,” said lawyer Mauricio Espinosa. “It's all of these attacks against the judicial branch and other autonomous bodies. What it does is end up strengthening the executive, the next president.”

Following big electoral victories in June by the president's Morena party and its allies, the government has pushed for sweeping changes to Mexico's judicial system, long at odds with López Obrador, a populist who has openly attacked judges and ignored court orders.

His proposal includes having judges elected to office, something analysts, judges and international observers fear would stack courts with politically biased judges with little experience.

That was the concern for Espinosa, who said judges “will have to raise money to campaign, find someone to have their backs. So their sentences will no longer be 100% independent."

The proposed changes would require approval by Mexico's Congress, where the governing coalition has the majority.

And electoral authorities on Friday allocated Morena and allied parties 73% of the seats in the lower house of Congress, though they won a significantly smaller 60% of the vote. That would give the governing bloc the two-thirds majority in Chamber of Deputies needed to push through constitutional changes with little or no compromise.

The coalition will be a few seats short of a two-thirds majority in the Senate, but it could feasibly win the needed votes from a smaller party.

While the new legislators don't take office until Sept. 1, a congressional committee on Friday already began pushing forward another contentious initiative — the elimination of seven autonomous bodies, including the National Institute of Transparency.

Morena argues Mexico's independent oversight and regulatory bodies are a waste of money. It says oversight responsibilities should be given to government departments instead, essentially allowing them to police themselves.

The collective moves by the president and his party have fueled concerns about undermining democratic institutions. But for many in the crowds, the overhaul of the judiciary represents the greatest threat.

Federal court employees and judges are on strike, the value of the peso has slumped and international financial firms have voiced concerns. At midweek, U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar warned that electing judges is a "risk” for Mexico’s democracy and “threatens the historic commercial relationship” between the two countries.

López Obrador, who leaves office Sept. 30, and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, a Morema member, rejected Salazar's comments. López Obrador called the comments “disrespectful of our national sovereignty," and Sheinbaum said Saturday that while there will always be dialogue between the U.S. and Mexico, “there are things that only correspond to Mexicans.”