Eight of the country’s 11 supreme court judges will stand down over reforms supported by President Claudia Sheinbaum
Eight of Mexico’s 11 supreme court judges have submitted their resignations after controversial judicial reforms, the top court has said.
In a move that has sparked diplomatic tensions and opposition street protests, Mexico is set to become the world’s only country to allow voters to choose all judges, at every level, starting next year.
The eight justices – including president Norma Pina – declined to stand for election in June 2025, a statement said, adding that one of the resignations would take effect in November and the rest next August.
The announcement came as the supreme court prepares to consider a proposal to invalidate the election of judges and magistrates. President Claudia Sheinbaum, however, has said that the court lacks the authority to reverse a constitutional reform approved by congress.
My opinion is, not based on Mexico, that the public is uninformed in the majority of decisions. Basically delegating power to the common person, especially technical decisions to the public will mean the most popular choice will win mostly, not the best choice. That is basically populism in a nutshell. Imagine you had to choose in this example a food policymaker, the one is the charismatic Willy Wonka that will say he wants everyone to eat sweets all the time, he wants you to eat whatever you want to eat, give you choices by subsidising all the sweets, worse he will attack Dr. Grouch, because he wants to tell you what to eat, force additional taxes on sweets to try and guide people to eat more gross vegetables, in fact basically force you, the poorest to have no choice but to eat these “healthy” foods. And unfortunately Dr. Grouch will agree, he wants you to eat "healthy food because in a couple of years you and your children will reap the benefits.
By this logic, we shouldn’t democratically choose any government positions.
This example was exactly the issue Socrates had with democracy actually, saying that a demagogue would be elected as a president or leaders of government the majority of the time. His solution was just as vague, so let’s just say there is no perfect system yet. All have their benefits and drawbacks.
Look it is messy, my feeling is you vote or don’t vote for a party based on their policy and track record, but after elections they have the will of the people to act, so they should then focus on the technical issues of government by being guided by their election promises, policy and the country’s constitution to ensure that minorities aren’t discriminated against for example.
Democracy is undoubtedly better than what came before, just sayin.
Agree, but there are many flavours of it. For example we began the discussion on how Mexico extended their democracy to now include the judicial branch of government, others can be how they vote, for example electoral college in USA, ranked choice voting in some European countries like France or my country, South Africa, we have proportional representation and cannot even vote for our president
Ok, then why don’t we apply this logic to democratically electing politicians?
This example was exactly the issue Socrates had with democracy actually, saying that a demagogue would be elected as a president or leaders of government the majority of the time. His solution was just as vague, so let’s just say there is no perfect system yet. All have their benefits and drawbacks.
Look it is messy, my feeling is you vote or don’t vote for a party based on their policy and track record, but after elections they have the will of the people to act, so they should then focus on the technical issues of government by being guided by their election promises, policy and the country’s constitution to ensure that minorities aren’t discriminated against for example.
Thank you for a solid answer.