Mexico is poised to amend its constitution this weekend to require all judges to be elected as part of a judicial overhaul championed by the outgoing president but slammed by critics as a blow to the country’s rule of law.
The amendment passed Mexico’s Congress on Wednesday, and by Thursday it already had been ratified by the required majority of the country’s 32 state legislatures. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would sign and publish the constitutional change on Sunday.
Legal experts and international observers have said the move could endanger Mexico’s democracy by stacking courts with judges loyal to the ruling Morena party, which has a strong grip on both Congress and the presidency after big electoral wins in June.
So, the judges will have to campaign on the issues? Doesn’t seem like the best idea if you want neutral and unbiased judges.
Do you want neutral judges or do you want judges that align with the popular view?
John Roberts spent his confirmation process convincing everyone he was a “neutral” balls and strikes judge. All his opinions are phrased to imply he is taking a rational and fact based approach to the law. Yet his decisions are all in favor of hard right positions.
Do you want a judge like that? Or do you want an “activist” judge that respects unions, defends abortion rights and voting rights, and curtails the power of private industry to subvert democracy?
I want judges who base their rulings on the law and not their political views. In theory, laws adjust to the popular view over time. Judges should not be part of that adjustment.
The law is a consequence of political viewpoints. The issue of Roe, for instance, is decided by the interpretation of a basket of Constitutional rights and privileges.
If laws weren’t up to ideological interpretation, we wouldn’t need judges or lawyers to begin with. They’d just be clerks administration filed paperwork with predetermined outcomes.