MEXICO CITY (Process).-The Morena party in the Chamber of Deputies is going for a far-reaching reform of the Judiciary, not only with the election by vote of the ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) but also to review who chairs the Council of the Judiciary and examine the use of amparo proceedings; the evaluation of performance in the 45 thousand members of power, the Professional Career Service, the judicial promotion and the examination of the organic structure.
It is, according to the leaders of Morena in the Chamber of Deputies, a comprehensive review of the Judiciary that can be presented in this legislature and, if necessary, leave it ready for the next one, when they have an absolute majority, in accordance with the wishes of the president. of the Republic, who announced that in September he would send three constitutional reforms, including that of the Judiciary “so that the people elect the ministers, as established in the 1857 constitution, that the ministers were elected by the people.”
After the four conversations in the Chamber of Deputies to discuss with specialists the presidential proposal for constitutional changes in the method of electing members of the Court, the debate took a 180 degree turn: reform the entire structure and functions of the Judiciary of the country with agreements with the judicial powers of the states.
“We are not the 11 of Pino Suárez 2, we are more than 45 thousand public servants, actuaries, notifiers, secretaries, study and account secretaries; of course, judges, and judges, magistrates and magistrates”, Minister Javier Laynez Potisek limited the members of the Political Coordination Board, on the occasion of the presentation of conclusions of the discussions on the reform.
The other representative of the Court, Minister Loretta Ortiz Ahlf, when speaking of the approach of the Federal Executive to modify the procedure for the election of the members of the plenary session of the SCJN, considered that, whatever the formula, it must have minimum principles: “Any reform to the Judiciary must ensure that these minimum guarantees of independence are constitutionally and legally enshrined as fundamental assumptions to ensure access to justice through the guarantee of due process and the right to judicial protection.”
In the meeting held at the San Lázaro palace on July 12, the president of the Jucopo and coordinator of Morena, Ignacio Mier Velazco, acknowledged that, what at first was only intended to be a consultation on the procedure to designate to the ministers of the highest court, allowed to broaden the expectation towards far-reaching modifications:
“It led us to broaden the expectation, and not because we had promoted it, but because finally a space was opened to reflect in a civilized, respectful way, on various topics and issues that are affecting daily justice.”
The president of the Constitutional Points Commission sees it as complicated, but not impossible, to achieve a comprehensive reform such as the one that is intended to be elaborated through the following spaces for dialogue in the states and new approaches with the Supreme Court. But in the event that this does not happen, they will seek to lay the foundations so that it is the incoming legislature, the LXVI, who is in charge of retaking an initiative raised by the current deputies.
“The least we can do is a good job, with a good initiative, that the largest number of parliamentary groups subscribe to it and raise it, and measure whether it is worth discussing it in this Legislature, because if it is rejected, then it can no longer be presented, but to the next period, or leave it to the next legislature, but… we go with the will to try it ”, explained the Morenista deputy Juan Ramiro Robledo.
Comprehensive reform postponed
After this first meeting with the members of the Court, with at least three of them, the Morena coordinator made some remarks regarding the steps to follow in what, initially, was aimed at holding a popular consultation, in 2024, to consult the people about the democratic election and by direct vote of the citizens, regarding the appointment of the 11 ministers of the high court.
“What was originally the possibility of developing a consultation to ask Mexican men and women if they considered it necessary to modify the procedure to designate the ministers of the Court, ended up being an urgent need to carry out a comprehensive review of the Judiciary,” he said. Ignacio Mier.
Article 96 of the Constitution establishes that, based on the proposal of the President of the Republic of three names for the position, “the ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation will be elected by the vote of two thirds of the present members of the Chamber of Senators or, during their recesses, by the Permanent Commission of the Congress of the Union, with the same qualified vote”.
But the matter passed into the background, as the coordinator of the majority in San Lázaro himself recognized, who said that the initial approach was more of a “provocative document”, which led to discussion and democratic reflection on the justice system in the country.
They recognized, he said, at least five issues that were noted in the discussions to configure a possible initiative that leads to a comprehensive reform, with dialogue and in harmony with the Judiciary.
According to what the legislator detected, the areas to work would be: “Review the indiscriminate manner of the use of amparo proceedings; the shared presidency of the SCJN with the Council of the Judiciary; the issues that remained pending in the 2021 reform on “performance evaluation, the Professional Career Service, judicial promotion, the review of the organic structure”, among others.
But one of the fundamental points, according to the president of the Constitutional Points Commission, Juan Ramiro Robledo, is the ownership of the Federal Judicial Council, as well as its integration.
Currently, the minister president of the SCJN also heads the CJF. According to article 100 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary of the Federation, the Judiciary is made up of seven members, including three counselors appointed by the Plenary of the Court, by a majority of at least eight votes, from among the magistrates circuit and district judges; two councilors appointed by the Senate and one by the President of the Republic.
This composition, alleges Deputy Robledo, falls into nonsense. He explains that the CJF was born with a majority of members from outside the Judiciary, in December 1994, and then there was a counter-reform, “sponsored by the Court’s own ministers and they convinced President Zedillo… and in that government formula, the legislature with PAN and PRI, the counter-reform was carried out and the internal arithmetic was inverted, so that there were four from the Judiciary and three from outside.”
According to the lawyer and law professor, this brought about a situation that diverted the reviewing faculty of the CJF. “What happened to that? Well, for the reviewing, vigilant and disciplinary body to remain subject to the body that should review and discipline, that is absurd. So, it is not just that the president of the Council is not the president of the Court, but that he does not belong to the Judiciary ”.
Other legislators from Morena propose different paths, as is the case of the secretary of the Justice Commission, Hamlet García. He points out that the presidency of the Council should be separated from the person who holds the position of presiding magistrate of the SCJN.
He gives as an example what happened a few decades ago in the San Lázaro legislative compound, when the deputies qualified their own election and always said that everything was valid; “Everything was tickled,” he says. “So, if a judge rates himself, what rating do you think he will give himself? Well, a 10”.
Indicates that there are several options. Since there must be an ancestry or line of respect towards whoever presides over the CJF, it could be considered that it was another of the members of the SCJN who headed the Federal Judiciary so that “within the 11 ministers, one presides over the Court and another presides over the Advice”.
This would pose, he says, a new distribution of forces in the judicial system and, in addition, he considers, would allow a legitimate supervision of the actions of judges and ministers: “Whoever presides over the Judiciary would have to be the president of the Council of the Judiciary. The Court would only be delivered to work as a constitutional court, not in the discipline of the entire Judiciary”.
As a second option, he proposed that the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate freely designate a person, which could emulate the same scheme with which ministers are chosen: that the president nominate and the Senate choose from a short list. “Or what we did with the institute (INE), go to a raffle,” says García Almaguer.
Although the Morena parliamentary group sees different areas of opportunity, they recognize that the current situation in the Union Congress, with the proximity of the start of the 2023-2024 electoral process and the difficulty of reaching consensus to obtain a qualified majority, from two third parts of the Plenary that requires any reform to the Constitution, hinder the changes in the last year of the LXV legislature.
Deputy Robledo accepts that at this time their simple majority does not allow them to promote these issues: “It is not so easy due to the conditions in which the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate find themselves, regarding constitutional reforms, the main ”.
With a more willful spirit, the Morenista Hamlet García is inclined to start working on issues that focus on secondary laws from the period that is about to start, next September: “I would be inclined to advance now, in what is possible, in this legislature on a point that seems to me to already have a consensus, because I have even heard it from other parliamentary groups, that it does not seem appropriate for the person who presides over the Court to preside over the Council”.
The leader of the Morena bench in San Lázaro insisted that the opening of dialogue with the Judiciary will allow them to move towards the elaboration of an initiative that is not necessarily for the current legislature, but that leaves the path paved for those who arrive.
“Instead of starting the open parliament discussion with an already prepared initiative, it is better to build an initiative based on a comprehensive review of all that I have pointed out to you, which will include the appointment procedure.”
He recalled that so far there are at least 29 initiatives that have to do with the Judiciary, some of them referring to article 96, to modify the elective procedure for ministers.
For the deputy Juan Ramiro Robledo, who leads the work of the Committee on Constitutional Points, where the proposal would have to be worked on, the time of the legislature continues to run, but he sees with more possibilities moving towards working in consensus than in trying to impose a Judicial reform.
“The least we can do is a good job, with a good initiative, that the largest number of parliamentary groups subscribe to it and raise it, and measure whether it is worth discussing it in this legislature, because if it is rejected, then it can no longer be presented, but to the next period, or leave it to the next legislature, but… we go with the will to try it, “concluded the legislator.
