A bipartisan group of senators has sounded the alarm over proposed constitutional changes proposed by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that aim to undermine the country's judicial system and independent oversight mechanisms.
The proposed reforms, which President Lopez Obrador has characterized as a strictly domestic issue, have attracted attention from the United States for their potential disruption to bilateral relations between the world's largest trading countries.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Senator James Risch (R-ID) issued a joint statement with ranking senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), calling on Mexico to consider the impact of reforms, including the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA).
“An independent and transparent judiciary is the hallmark of every democratic nation. We are deeply concerned that Mexico's proposed judicial reforms would undermine the independence and transparency of its judiciary, endangering important shared economic and security interests between our two countries,” the senators wrote.
“We are also concerned that some other constitutional amendments currently being discussed could conflict with commitments made in the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, which is up for review in 2026.”
President Lopez Obrador is pushing through his final reforms before his term ends on Oct. 1 in what his allies have portrayed as a blow against corruption and government waste, but his opponents and many outside observers see as a blatant power grab.
The centerpiece of the reform package is a proposal to re-establish Mexico's federal courts as elected bodies and to make all federal judges subject to popular vote.
Lopez Obrador has also proposed a host of other smaller reforms, from electoral reform, further militarization of the national police, the abolition of seven independent agencies, from the country's freedom of information watchdog to antitrust regulator, to a constitutional ban on e-cigarettes.
Two Mexican judges on Monday filed a complaint signed by more than 1,100 federal judges with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) in Washington, calling on the multilateral body to ensure that Mexico's reform process complies with the international treaty obligations the country has acquired.
Judge Rogelio Alanis Garcia said he expected Lopez Obrador's proposal would attract international attention because it would almost certainly have implications beyond Mexico's borders.
“There's no doubt that it will happen. [draw international attention]Because Mexico's compliance with its international obligations is linked to the fact that we are not an island in the world. We are part of North America, or more generally, the United States, and we are part of the Western Hemisphere. [Hemisphere]“,” Alanis said.
“And that is why Mexico, as a sovereign state, has assumed this obligation. And it is precisely in this regional integration, an economic integration that has been going on for 30 years, that we carry out this defense, which is crucial for investment, for the economy, for politics and for legal certainty in itself.”
But President Lopez Obrador is expected to force through most, if not all, of his proposed constitutional changes when the new Congress convenes on September 1.
A coalition led by Lopez Obrador's Morena party won a landslide victory in June, and the country's electoral authorities gave its three parties a constitutional supermajority in the lower house of parliament through proportional representation.
The electoral authorities' representative proposal, which is challenged by the opposition but will likely be adopted, would leave Lopez Obrador's party three votes short of a majority in the Senate.
Lopez Obrador's political successor, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, has sought to ensure there is no gap between her and the outgoing president, and both Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum have criticized U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar, who on Thursday warned of the pitfalls of the elected judiciary system.
That means there are few or no major political obstacles to the ambitious agenda that President Lopez Obrador set out last month.
“We urge the Lopez Obrador administration and the incoming Sheinbaum administration to pursue only reforms that will enhance professional qualifications, fight corruption, protect judicial independence, and strengthen investor confidence. These considerations are essential to safeguarding the democratic values and mutual prosperity that bind our nations,” Cardin, Risch, Cain and Rubio wrote.
