A constitutional change replacing half of the federal judiciary with judges elected by popular vote has undermined judicial independence in Mexico, Human Rights Watch said today as the new judges take office.
The new judges, including six of the Supreme Court's nine members, are set to take office on September 1, 2025, following a popular election carried out on June 1. In September 2024, congressmen and senators from the political coalition led by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo approved a constitutional change eliminating judicial tenure and establishing that judges would be elected periodically. Under the new framework, judicial elections are to be held in each judicial district, from candidates drawn from lists defined by three different evaluation committees appointed by the president, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.
"Far from being an effort to make the judiciary more democratic and efficient, the judicial reform is likely to make it more loyal to the government," said Juanita Goebertus Estrada, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "We will closely monitor whether the new Supreme Court fulfills its responsibility to uphold the constitution and hold the government accountable to the law."
According to the Organization of American States (OAS), Mexico is the only country in the world were "the totality of the judges are elected through universal vote."
The process to select candidates for the judicial elections in June was marked by multiple flaws and irregularities, Human Rights Watch said.
In January, the Evaluation Committee of the Federal Judiciary appointed by the Federal Judiciary resigned following a court order to suspend its work. The Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary then transferred its power to shortlist candidates to the Senate. In practice, that meant that all the candidates were shortlisted by selection committees in the executive branch and the Senate, where the ruling party, Morena, and its allies have a two-thirds majority.
The constitutional change established vague criteria to shortlist candidates, such as honesty, reputation, and competence. It provided that the evaluation committees should choose the candidates on the basis of a short motivation letter and five "reference letters" from "neighbors, colleagues or other people."
The evaluation committees did not approve bylaws to clarify how they would assess candidates and determine whether they were fit to serve as judges or to ensure that the committees are using similar criteria. The evaluation committees also had to shortlist the candidates on a very short timeline. According to the Observatory of Judicial Reform, a coalition of human rights groups observing the process, this meant that the executive and legislative commissions had to examine 40 applications per day, including during weekends.
Authorities then conducted a purportedly random draw to determine which of the candidates selected by the committees were able to run for office.
Only 13 percent of the people eligible to vote took to the ballots, in what observers with the OAS described as "one of the lowest levels of electoral participation in the region." The elections resulted in the appointment of 6 supreme court justices, 800 federal justices, and 1,800 local judges.
OAS observers identified a range of shortcomings in the election, including lack of transparency on the financing and expense of campaigns.
The six elected members of the Supreme Court were shortlisted by the executive branch committee, though some had also been included by Congress. They will join three others who had been appointed by former President López Obrador. The OAS observers found that the six elected members had been included in "cheat sheets" (known in Mexico as "acordeones") that unspecified actors distributed physically and online to urge people to vote for a particular slate of candidates.
The constitutional change and subsequent implementing legislation also created a Judicial Discipline Tribunal with broad powers to sanction and remove judges from office. The five members of the tribunal, who were also popularly elected, are empowered to sanction judges if they "rule, in a clear way, against the constitution, applicable law, or the interpretation established in the case-law," "decide against the facts of the case," or transgress other criteria.
Under international standards, judges should have guaranteed tenure and be protected from political influence to ensure that they can make decisions based solely on the facts of the case and in accordance with the law. The United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers has highlighted the importance of adopting "non-political appointment processes, linked strictly to the quality and professional merit" of judicial candidates.
While half of the Federal Judiciary will take office on September 1, the other half is set to be elected in 2027. Mexico's authorities should learn from the serious flaws in its 2025 judicial elections and abrogate this constitutional change or, at the very least, provide serious safeguards to ensure the integrity of the next round of judicial elections in 2027, Human Rights Watch said.
