An Elected Judiciary? Mexico’s Constitutional Reform

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Gabriel Del Bosque Velasco

The election of populist left-wing politician Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO) in 2018 marked the beginning of what he termed Mexico’s “4th Transformation.” This term attempted to position himself and his party Morena as the legitimate successors of political change in Mexican society, paying homage to the Mexican War of Independence in 1810 (1st transformation), the War of Reform in 1858 (2nd), and the 1917 Mexican Revolution (3rd). These historic events built and shaped the modern political institutions in Mexico; as such his declaration of the beginning of the 4th transformation alluded to massive political change for Mexico and its institutions. Running on a platform of wealth redistribution in a stratified Mexican society, utilizing a multidimensional measurement of poverty which looks at income and surrounding services 72.9% exists within an index of poverty. His famous slogan “Primero los Pobres” (the poor first) has positioned those in situations of poverty at the forefront of political priority, with the implementation of a broader system of loans, financial aid, food aid, and specially designated scholarships. However, in the background of such reforms has been careful engineering and modifications of the country’s core democratic institutions. This rhetoric has continued in the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum, AMLO’s hand-picked successor for the Morena party. Sheinbaum has continued the policies of Lopez-Obrador and has successfully begun passing a package of legislation introduced to Congress in the waning stages of the Obrador presidency, such as an expansion of pretrial detention powers, replacement of judge appointments with popular elections, elimination of constitutional restrictions on military enforcing law, and eliminating the government’s independent watchdog. Also the creation of an additional tribunal to oversee that these judges are fulfilling their duty to the establishment of justice. These changes show a grander narrative in Mexican politics, one of consolidation of power by Morena, and the continuation of a grander vision for the future of Mexico. Morena shows no sign of slowing down: in the last election cycle, Morena’s coalition won 256 of 300 electoral districts. As such, these judicial reforms were implemented to solidify their interests and ensure that the 4th transformation continues unimpeded.

The democratic history of the Mexican Republic is seldom discussed: it is often assumed, due to proximity with the United States and lack of major conflict since 1917, that Mexican society has enjoyed relatively stable democratic institutions. This, however, is not the case. From 1929 to 2000, the country’s politics were dominated by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional or Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which won every presidential election with over 70% of the vote from 1929 to 1982.   This period of dominance can be further demonstrated by the 1976 general election, where PRI candidate Jose Lopez Portillo ran unopposed as no registered political party was able to field a candidate. This period of PRI dominance established a strict bureaucratic state and is largely to blame for the widespread institutionalization of corruption and cronyism within the Mexican political structure. The continuation of the will of the political machine was what mattered for PRI. Instead of open inner party elections for the next presidential candidate, the sitting president would instead handpick his successor from within the inner party cabal. The corruption which exists within the overall governmental structures of Mexico is normalized to the degree where Mexican Cinema has routinely featured its absurdity as a comedic element in films. There is an underlying acceptance of corruption in Mexico: elements such as favoritism, nepotism, and cronyism are seen as features instead of bugs within the system and as a result, something that is accepted. Furthermore, the election of Miguel de la Madrid in 1982 unleashed a neoliberal transformation in Mexico, marked by a steep culling of state-owned industry and a shift away from any type of populist reform. This period deeply affected the psyche of the Mexican populace, from rigged elections to high- profile assassinations of political candidates, all of which helped to strip the perceived autonomy of a democratic process. This time period also helped entrench the narco as a legitimized political force, one which capitalized on the preexisting bureaucratic rot and corruption. Although the one-party rule was broken by the victory of Vicente Fox in 2000, by then it was too late. The Mexican political structure was irredeemably accepted as beyond salvation and no amount of remedial care could hope to save it. A hobbled democratic tradition can rarely fix itself, and it was not until Obrador’s sweeping victory that the masses began to see the light of democracy.

In order to fully analyze the thought process and the development of Morena’s reforms it is important to briefly look at the political origins of Morena and, namely, the motivations of AMLO. The Sheinbaum presidency has largely been a direct continuation of not only policies and rhetoric but also of the vision and purpose of Morena. During the 2018 presidential race Andres Manuel centered his vision on Mexico’s most vulnerable: the poor. In widespread populist appeal he attempted to connect and to inspire large swaths of the country’s population that had felt forgotten in the face of rapid economic advancement and a centering of wealth at the top of Mexican society. Furthermore, he focused on another large issue of importance as a central point of his campaign: corruption. In 2018, Mexico scored a 28 out of 100 on Transparency International's corruption index, an abysmal metric which showcased the dire state of the Mexican bureaucracy; AMLO, despite his long-standing political presence, was seen as a breath of fresh air. He cruised to a landslide electoral victory, scoring 54.1% of the popular vote and winning 30 out of the 31 states. Furthermore, the Morena-led coalition scored a majority victory in the Senate, winning 69 of 128 seats and giving them an unimpeded majority in the Senate. The mandate from the people was clear, and after two failed presidential campaigns AMLO had finally risen to the top of the Mexican political hierarchy.

However, the political project of Lopez-Obrador is not novel; a lot of parallels exist between Obrador and similar populist movements. Most notably, Bolivian ex-president Evo Morales has enacted similar reforms, from the creation of a project to uplift a disenfranchised public, to their focus on an expansion of the welfare state, and ultimately to the Judicial Constitutional reforms which were also enacted during the Morales presidency in Bolivia. 

In 2009, Evo Morales’s party, Movimento al Socialismo or Movement towards Socialism (MAS), passed a new constitution through widespread democratic and legislative support. The passing of the new constitution reset Morales’ electoral eligibility and further entrenched recognition of the native peoples of Bolivia through the recognition of Bolivia as a plurinational state composed of all native nations. It also made Bolivia the first Latin American country to authorize the democratization of its judicial system. Articles 182-186 of the new Bolivian constitution outline a principle of universal suffrage in the election of judges of the country’s supreme judicial body. These candidates are preselected by the national assembly, and as such are extensions of the already-existing democratic process. Furthermore, safeguards are in place to ensure the viability of candidates and to maintain impartiality in the judicial process. In the eyes of Morales and the MAS party, this was a major victory for the people: they had successfully placed a major governmental body squarely into the hands of the population. However, in Bolivia this was met with large relative indifference, with 60% of the population simply opting not to select any judicial candidates. 

The Mexican constitutional reform differs from the Bolivian reform in substantial ways. Not only does Mexico trump Bolivia’s population, its systemic issues permeate into Mexican society in fundamentally different ways.  For starters, Mexico’s judicial reforms will affect the totality of the judiciary ranging from the highest to the lowest of the courts as opposed to Bolivia’s which only focused on the supreme judiciary and other higher level courts. Furthermore, Bolivia’s reform came alongside all encompassing constitutional reforms while Mexico’s is essentially a plug-and-play maneuver targeting only the judicial institutions.  The changes seen in the judicial reform of 2025 were the culmination of a long-standing effort by Morena to alter the political structures of the country. The judicial plan that was enacted was referred to as “Plan C” by Morena and its supporters, in reference to the past attempts of Morena to enact systematic change. After a ratification by 23 of 31 states, and overwhelming majority victories in the Mexican Senate and Chamber of Deputies (equivalent of the US House of Representatives), the Morena Party passed the officially recognized Reforma Constitucional al Poder Judicial or Constitutional Reform to the Judicial Power The Mexican constitution allows changes to be made to itself in both Articles 39 and 135, and these provisions were used to justify the changes to the judicial system. Both the opposition and media have questioned the constitutionality of the move but the mechanisms which Morena went through appear legitimate at a first glance. However, members of Morena have declined to publicly debate or affirm the legitimacy of such a move. Much like in Bolivia, safeguards were introduced to ensure that the candidates were well qualified and had no preexisting connections to criminal organizations or other groups with special interests. The selection of candidates for judges will involve a lengthy bureaucratic process started by a call to create a short list by the senate, where the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches will nominate ten candidates each. The Senate will then verify the nominees' eligibility and send the list to the National Electoral Institute by the end of the year. The National Electoral Institute will conduct the election counts and communicate the results to the Senate. The Senate will publish the results and send them to the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary. 

Candidates are also required to meet certain guidelines to ensure that their nominations are not out of place. Candidates will no longer need to have a career in the judicial branch, but will continue to need a law degree with an average of 9/10 in courses with related areas of expertise. Applicants will also need to have practiced law for at least five years and submit an essay and recommendation letters from individuals attesting to their qualifications. On the surface, these look like appropriate safeguards, and they allow for the voters to have access to the top of the top of legal ability in the running for these positions. Morena’s emphasis on combating systemic corruption and the innate inaccessibility of Mexico’s political structure to the average person was the driving force behind the reform. After all, Morena has been successful in battling poverty, and their social reforms have helped uplift millions of people out of poverty.  The ambitious reform replaced half of the federal and local judges in elections held in August of 2025, and will seek to replace the rest in 2027. 

Clear concerns have already appeared shortly after the elections of new candidates. The claim that corruption is over and that the age of Morena is a new page of Mexican politics is not particularly true. One of the most glaring issues with both AMLO’s and Sheinbaum’s presidency has been the laissez-faire attitude towards the Cartel. What was once officially recognized as an enemy of the state since the start of the Narco war, declared by President Felipe Calderon and continued by the succeeding president Enrique Peña Nieto, came to an end with Obrador. He instead has employed a policy of embrace, with himself stating <<abrazos, no balazos,>> “hugs, not guns.” Despite official government numbers showing that September 2025 saw a 35% decrease in homicides compared to the previous year, the public perception of public safety remains low, with 63% of the urban population claiming they perceive their life as unsafe. Furthermore, the government’s inability to control violence across the country was exemplified during the last election cycle, where a record 37 presumptive candidates for office across the country were assassinated. Additionally, as of October 2025, seven journalists have been assassinated, and on October 12th, a journalist appeared on Sheinbaum’s daily morning press conference to reveal she was a victim of an attempt on her life. The cartel influence is not a new phenomenon in the Mexican state; however, the government’s inability to curb either their soft political influence or hard power projection proves worrying in the face of sweeping judicial reforms. According to a report from news source MILENIO, there were 18 presumptive judicial candidates with ties to organized crime; of those, eight lacked the necessary prerequisites to even be considered for the position. Although in principle the expansion of democratic agency to a population is good, a government that lacks the ability to regulate major systemic issues within its politics opens a Pandora's box of compromising possibilities. 

Moreover, despite the bold claims from Lopez Obrador and Morena that corruption was officially over and that the era of a meritocratic Mexican state is upon us, this has not been reflected in reality. Morena has been willing to welcome and lure members of the premier political parties in Mexico such as the aforementioned PRI and conservative party PAN. Of the current 67 Morena senators, seven of them belonged to PRI and PAN before they changed the color of their jersey and, in 2022, eight Morena state governors were previously members of the PRI party. Furthermore, multiple ex-governors who were members of these parties have been lured with prestigious diplomatic assignments, among other rewards. For example, during the last round of diplomatic ratifications in the Senate, protests erupted in the chamber to try and stop the naming of Juan Antonio Ferrer as representative of Mexico to UNESCO. In earlier roles, Ferrer was accused of allegedly siphoning hundreds of millions of pesos intended for the purchase of respirators and medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. This game of political musical chairs and jersey-swapping has further undermined the trust placed on the democratic institutions in Mexico. The same faces but with a different slogan and colors are the ones who decide the future of the country. Those who have been previously exposed as mafiosos or corrupt simply changed to the winning side. As a result, Mexico has dropped two spots in the world corruption index, placing it 140th out of 180 tracked countries in 2024.  

Voter turnout for the judicial elections was abysmally low, with 90% of voters either disinterested or intentionally refusing to participate in the vote. For many the rules and implications of the reform were not appropriately clear. Nor can it be expected that voters, many of whom still belong to the working class, properly educate themselves on every position of every single candidate. Voters were expected to fill 2,700 judicial positions out of 7,800 candidates across federal and state elections. According to an article from the New York Times, many independent election watchdogs observed a large number of irregularities, including pre-printed “cheat sheets” indicating which candidates to vote for. These cheat sheets were described as “judicial accordions" by the media and were allegedly distributed by members of the Morena Party in order to signal friendly candidates to the party. The perceived failure of the judicial elections provided members of the opposition the necessary ammunition to deem the process as undemocratic. Morena has been able to capitalize on their electoral popularity to essentially fill the judiciary with party loyalists or those who are in support of the current regime and its policies. According to the Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary established by the United Nations Human Rights Office, judges must be guaranteed the safety to do their job unimpeded and without political pressure. Moreover, in a 2022 report on the Bolivian Judicial Reform, the UN took the position that “the crucial criterion of a prevalence of non-political appointment procedures, strictly linked to quality professional merit and commitment to the values ​​of the rule of law and the standards contained in the Basic Principles relating to the Independence of the Judiciary. Despite the noble virtues and rhetoric which surrounded the reform,the execution has been less than ideal and instead has showcased what large-scale democratic efforts without proper organization or planning can look like.

Notwithstanding the seemingly exigent safeguards to ensure the quality of the candidates, the election results and the observations from their short time in office have reflected the opposite. Numerous cases have been highlighted where candidates are seemingly unprepared to do their job or have hired an unreasonably high number of aides. One of the elected supreme court judges, Judge Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, originally hired 104 aides to his staff and, under heavy scrutiny, let around 40% of those go, still placing his staff at around 60 people. Compare this to a US Supreme Court Justice’s 4 clerks each, and the figure becomes more staggering. It has also been reported that numerous judges have capitalized on their position in order to fill other government positions with friends, party loyalists, and family members, a far cry from the supposed anti-corruption rhetoric of Morena.

The bottom line is that Mexico never had the appropriate bureaucratic security nor democratic strength to successfully implement such sweeping reforms. These reforms were treated by the current government as a liberation of the democratic spirit of the population, yet it took place in an election that few voted in. They were pitched as a way to free the judiciary from long-standing influence by outside forces such as the cartels, yet the selection committees were unable to filter those with ties to organized crime. Making the judiciary responsible to the people was pitched as a way for them to punish those who violated the spirit of the law, to cleanse those who continuously use and abuse the system to better themselves, their friends, and their families. But the contrary has already been shown to be taking place. Mexico’s democratic history is a shaky one, chased by the shadows of an institutional monster in the form PRI. Suffocated by the influence and violence of the Narco, the United States, and a populace whose votes have been bought by the promise of an elevation of their economic conditions. The second phase of these elections in 2027 will prove to be significant in the development of the 4th transformation in Mexico — Morena could prove themselves capable of patching up the holes of the last electoral campaign. However, given the political momentum of the party, it is difficult to say whether a botched 2027 would matter for the continuation of Morena's 4th Transformation.