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.
There seems to be something contradictory about the idea that letting people elect judges endangers democracy. If you don’t trust the people to elect judges, how can you trust them to elect the people who appoint judges?
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US Supreme Court Justices are not elected. They make a lot of political decisions beyond just upholding the status quo. There are a lot of US states that have judicial elections and they don’t have major crises because of it.
Don’t kid yourself, the US Supreme Court is balls deep in politics. The situation where political parties can essentially buy a Supreme Court result for life is a disgraceful situation. That’s why the US is in such a terrible mess. Justice is not served, politics is.
My point is precisely that the US Supreme Court is embroiled in politics. The notion that being appointed somehow insulates the justices from politics is absurd.
Elections at least create some semblance of accountability to the voters.
I’ve made this point elsewhere. In Australia the Chief justices are appointed by the government based on a shortlist presented by the legal establishment. They are preeminently qualified and are above politics. Both sides of the political spectrum are fine with this system and it is not gamed.
It is utterly non-controversial and the Australian people respect the institution. Tell me again how it is absurd to remove politics from a judicial system?
If you believe anyone is above politics I have a bridge to sell you.
Well, there are degrees, aren’t there? Some judicial systems ban individual reproductive rights, allow corporations to be people and give criminal immunity to presidents, and some don’t.
Not doing that is also political
The same was said about the SCOTUS until recently, where it’s become very obvious it is political and has a ton of power to enact their political goals.
I’m afraid that how the US chooses SCOTUS is vastly different from ike countries, and that’s how you end up with the US having ‘unique’ judicial situations.
https://theconversation.com/unlike-us-europe-picks-top-judges-with-bipartisan-approval-to-create-ideologically-balanced-high-courts-146550
That’s just because your conservatives haven’t discovered not confirming justices. We used to have bipartisan consensus on judicial picks as well. Give it time as the other capitalist countries continue to decay and get more fascist. Relying on these moral codes and gentleman’s agreements doesn’t work once a party learns to disrupt the system.
Obama literally picked a judge the opposition said was the only one they would pick and then they still didn’t. You can’t remove politics from these systems.
Almost a lot? So a big few?
Typo fixed. Pedantry is fun isn’t it.?
It’s my favorite.
Just look at the US Supreme Court’s recent rulings and tell me that’s a healthy judicial system. I’d rather have the ability to vote for a judge, but more importantly, we need to have a system in place that can more easily impeach them should their actions not reflect the will of the people.
No matter what your system is it all comes down to the real key of democracy. That is society having a respect for democracy and the rule of law. If your Society doesn’t have an innate desire for a just system you’re not going to have a justice system no matter what system you use. It’s not a tangible thing it’s something that has to be created over time. Elected judges or appointed judges, there’s deep flaws to both concepts.
What many democracies around the world are missing is greater recallability in offices. Citizens need to be able to easily oust people nonviolently.
Short terms of office should have the same effect. If you want to stay in power you should have fight for it.
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Elected Judges still get their jobs done. They have clerks who do a lot of their drafting and grunt work in the office.
For large elections, there are staffers and volunteers who do a lot of the electioneering. For small elections, campaign events only occur on weekends and at other times when court is not in session.
Terrible idea
Judges are not supposed to work for the majority. They are supposed to work for justice.
Justice in most cases means opposing political power (formal in this case).
Thus they should be selected in some way radically different from how political power is formed.
Sortition is one way, if you don’t want some entrenched faction reproducing itself. Would be better than US too. But still sortition from the pool of qualified people, that is, judges, and not just every random bloke who applies, of course.
When has the court ever ruled in opposition to political power?
It isn’t as though you can’t corrupt a candidate after they take office. Look at Clarence Thomas.
Russian Supreme Court in 1993 when ruling that Yeltsin and the parliament should both resign and have new presidential and parliament elections. Yeltsin’s opposition agreed, Yeltsin said he’s the president and it’s democratic and legal that he decides everything and sent tanks.
Since the US was friendly with Yeltsin, this was considered business as usual.
In fairness, that was just a coup and regime change effectively at gunpoint.
Ye-es, but nobody in the West said so. Maybe if in that one moment things went differently, Russia would be at least a very flawed democracy today.
I disagree. All that does is turn judges into politicians. The US Supreme court isn’t elected, but selected by politicians. Keep politics as far as you possibly can from people with an interest in gaming the system.
And look what has happened to the US supreme court in the last few years… That seems to completely disagree with your point. It has been stacked with very partisan judges by politicians looking to game the system
The key word is “stacked”. Who stacked them? Political parties did.
My point is intact. Have professional judicial bodies create curated shortlist of suitability qualified candidates.
I think the difficulties that people have in appreciating this system is that they have been captured by the experience of their own failed system. To say that it wouldn’t work means that you have to fundamentally ignore all the places where is is used successfully.
The thing is that the candidates for judges will be chosen by commitees from “the 3 powers” which are, basically, under controll of MORENA.
You could say the same of any public service role.
The voting public doesn’t have the requisite experience and knowledge to make good decisions about candidates for executive or judicial roles.
Government is a different case. You’re selecting a representative. Someone to represent you in parliament. The skills required to do so are in theory less significant. It’s just a responsible person who will raise their hand at the right time.