The news
The Mexican House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the voted to approve the controversial bill by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to reform the judiciary, with judges elected by popular vote.
Lawmakers gathered in a nearby sports hall after protests blocked the entrance to the legislative palace. Judicial staff, including Supreme Court justices, and others have gone on strike and demonstrated against the bill.
Critics say the planned measures would undermine the independence of the judiciary from politics and allow President López Obrador’s Moreno party to further consolidate power.
Now that the legislation has passed the House, it will go to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.
SIGNALS
Business community alarmed about changes
Mexican business leaders have expressed concern that the proposed changes, such as the elimination of autonomous regulators, politicizing justiceparticularly affecting regulated areas such as mining, energy and telecoms, an executive told the Financial Times. Companies that fight unfair competition from state-owned firms could end up before judges allied with the ruling party. The proposal has dented foreign investment in the country and could gradually undermine trade between the US and Mexico, each other’s largest trading partners. “This is more like cancer than a heart attack,” said an expert at Citi Bank.
Officials were stunned by the ‘extreme’ proposal
The proposed changes have been widely criticized by international legal experts and officials, with the U.S. ambassador to Mexico saying it “is a major risk to the functioning of Mexican democracyAfter his Canadian counterpart echoed the criticism, López Obrador said he was “pausing” diplomatic relations with the embassies of both countries, a recurring resource used by him to illustrate disagreements with countries, El País wrote. Critics have noted that the reforms would fail to “high degree of impunity and chronic underfunding“in the Mexican legal system,” the BBC reported, and others are concerned about the introduction of “beheaded judges“whose identity would remain secret while handling organized crime cases, The Associated Press reported.
