MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Senate voted early Wednesday morning to reform the country’s judiciaryremoving the biggest obstacle to a controversial constitutional amendment that would require all judges to stand for election. Critics fear the change would politicize the judiciary and threaten Mexican democracy.
The vote came after hundreds of protesters forced their way into the Senate on Tuesday, disrupting the session after it emerged that Morena, the ruling party of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obradorhad collected the necessary votes to pass the proposal.
The legislation sailed through the lower chamber last week, where Morena and his allies hold a supermajority. The Senate has been the biggest hurdle, requiring defections from opposition parties.
A proposal from the opposition National Action Party (PAN) appeared to be coming on Tuesday after a lawmaker who had previously spoken out against the reform took leave for medical reasons and suggested to his father, a former governor, that he vote in favor of the proposal.
The Senate voted twice on the bill, both times by 86-41 votes, the second time around 4 a.m.
The legislation now needs to be ratified by the legislatures of 17 of Mexico’s 32 states. The ruling party is said to have the necessary support after major electoral gains in recent elections.