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.
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.
What would be a real world problem on voting for those judges?
Electing judges will get them involved with party politics. They’ll have to spend time campaigning, and there will be less experienced judges.
The US has that, doesn’t it?
No. The ruling party gets to appoint a new judge when one retires.
Afaik the problem is that the Democrats play nice and the Republicans take advantage of this, because why wouldn’t they? Ofc each party is going to appoint a judge with alligned world views, but sitting judges don’t need to show loyalty or do party politics whatsoever.
Supreme Court justices are appointed and they serve for life (or retirement/resignation). State justices can vary.
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.
Anarchists didn’t come up with that. It shit existed for nearly 20 centuries and might still exist in some places today.
Well yeah, juries are selected that way in the US.
Some anarchists take it farther and see it as a way to completely replace representative democracy as a structure of power. No more politicians, no more elections, every position is filled randomly from the population.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
You must be from the USA to misunderstand the separation of powers so badly.
The US fucking loves that shit.
It’s why I can see it’s bullshit.
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.
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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https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/03/claudia-sheinbaum-president-mexico-party-supermajority
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