Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, has successfully introduced a judicial overhaul that will see nearly all the country’s judges — including those on the Supreme Court — elected by popular vote instead of by government appointment.
The judicial reforms include the creation of a Tribunal for Judicial Discipline, whose elected members will have broad powers to investigate and possibly even fire or impeach judges, including those in the Supreme Court. Mexico’s senate approved the reforms on September 11 with 86 votes in favour and 41 against.
The United States, used to meddling in other nations' internal affairs, opposed the reforms during their proposal. US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar posted a statement to X on August 22: “I believe popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.”
Salazar claimed that the overhaul would “threaten the historic trade relationship” between the US and Mexico and “make it easier for cartels and other bad actors to take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges”.
The US embassy reiterated Salazar’s comments on August 23, stating that it had “significant concerns that the popular election of judges would neither address judicial corruption nor strengthen the judicial branch”.
Interference
AMLO rejected the US’ blatant attempt to interfere in Mexican politics, and on August 27 announced he was “pausing” relations with the US embassy. “Hopefully there will be a statement from them that they are going to be respectful of the independence of Mexico,” AMLO said.
AMLO said that the changes are needed to instill trust in a judicial system widely viewed by Mexicans as a bastion of corruption, influence-peddling and nepotism.
While the “pause” continues, AMLO has said that overall relations would remain the same. Mexico is the US’ biggest trading partner, and neither have an interest in breaking relations.
The US also relies on Mexico to help suppress the influx of Central American asylum seekers — fleeing violence and poverty largely caused by US imperialist policies — from reaching the US.
US hypocrisy
While many on the left are critical of AMLO’s policies based on genuine concerns with democracy, the US embassy and ambassador’s criticism of Mexico’s judicial reforms stems from concern over the potential impact on US imperial interests. The hypocrisy and double standards are laid bare when looking at the deeply undemocratic judicial system in the US.
While judges are popularly elected in many US states, federal judges are all appointed by the president and ratified by the Senate, including those serving in the Supreme Court.
The Senate itself is designed undemocratically, consisting of two senators from each state, regardless of the state’s population size. For example, California and Wyoming both have two senators, despite having populations of 39.5 million and just under 600,000, respectively.
Both houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, do not function according to democratic parliamentary rules, such as Robert’s Rules of Order — a widely used guide to govern meetings and group decision-making.
Instead, they establish their own rules. For example, the Speaker of the House and Leader of the Senate decide the meeting agendas and what items can be taken up by members.
The US Constitution enshrines lifetime terms for Supreme Court judges, unless they are impeached and convicted, which rarely happens. By majority vote, five members of the nine-member court can strike down any law passed by Congress as “unconstitutional” and annul executive decisions. This essentially means they can operate independently of Congress and the Executive.
The process by which Supreme Court justices are appointed is also undemocratic. Justices are nominated by the president and then voted on by the Senate, which leaves the process open to manipulation by whichever party controls the Senate.
When there was an opening on the Supreme Court in early 2016, due to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, then-President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him. But Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell used his position to refuse a Senate vote to ratify the nomination.
McConnell and his fellow lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Senate delayed the vote to see if Donald Trump would win the 2016 presidential election, which he did, and subsequently dropped Garland’s nomination.
Two other openings on the Supreme Court allowed Trump to appoint three right-wing justices in total that oppose abortion rights, who joined up with the other anti-abortion justices. The resulting six-to-three majority overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established the right to abortion.
The decision went against the majority of people in the US who support abortion rights.
The court has since ruled against many lower court rulings that favoured the rights of workers and the oppressed and ruled in favour of others that did the opposite. Given the ages of the six right-wing justices, they will dominate the court for decades.
This is of no concern to Salazar, himself a lawyer, who said that he has “a deep and abiding respect” for the many US state and federal courts he practiced in. Clearly, Salazar’s — and the US embassy’s — purported concern with “the rule of law” does not extend to the undemocratic US judicial system.