Mexican judiciary on strike
Aug. 20, 2024
Mexican judicial workers launched an indefinite nationwide strike yesterday, in response to a judicial reform advancing through Congress. They will be joined, starting tomorrow, by more than 1,200 federal judges and magistrates, reports Animal Político.
Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador considers the reform, dubbed Plan C, a key legacy. He hopes to pass it next month, using the Morena party’s new dominance in Congress, and his last month in office. It would make judges elected rather than appointed, and critics say it would endanger the judicial power’s position as a counterweight in a country where the ruling Morena party dominates overwhelmingly in the legislative and executive powers.
The judicial unions who called the strike, which represent many of Mexico's 55,000 judicial workers, said they believed the reform would end merit-based career paths, reports Reuters. “Critics say the change could result in people with minimal legal experience being elected to judgeships,” reports the New York Times.
Unionized court employees put chains and locks on the gates at several courthouses, yesterday, and said they plan to continue the strike until López Obrador drops his proposals, reports the Associated Press.
AMLO proposed the reform in response to what he says is judicial corruption, but experts say the overhaul will not respond to systemic problems like slow-moving cases and inept investigations that allow many crimes to go unpunished, reports the New York Times. Indeed, the system of political evaluation committees could create new opportunities for corruption, experts told Animal Político.
“The overwhelming majority of cases of impunity in Mexico are not attributable to judicial authorities,” according to a new WOLA commentary. “Impunity for crimes reported by the population occurs mainly at the stage of investigation by prosecutors’ offices … In this context, the proposed judicial reform would lead to the continuation and deepening of patterns of impunity and abuse against the population.”
And “critics fear the potential consequences of local and state authorities following the federal system in electing their judges, which they allege could open the way for organized crime to infiltrate the judiciary,” reports Americas Quarterly.
More Mexico
Mexico City mayor-elect Clara Brugada appointed a gender-parity cabinet heavy on technocrats. She promised a “feminist perspective” and work on the ground, not from behind a desk, reports El País. (See also Animal Político.)
The emerging story of Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada’s arrest “includes strong indications that Sinaloa's governor, an ally of AMLO, was being paid off by the Sinaloa Cartel,” a story that “will turn out poorly for MORENA and will harm AMLO's legacy on security issues, which is likely why the president has reacted so viscerally to the events,” according to the Latin America Risk Report.
Mexico’s government deployed 600 additional military troops to Sinaloa’s state capital Culiacán, yesterday, reports Animal Político.
Migration
Today Panama deported 29 Colombian nationals with criminal records who had entered the country through the Darién Gap. It is the first U.S.-funded flight repatriating migrants who crossed into Panama irregularly, part of an accord signed between Panama’s Mulino administration and the U.S. government last month, reports Reuters. (See also Reuters.)
Registration opened yesterday for an estimated 500,000 spouses of U.S. citizens to gain legal status without having to first leave the country, reports the Associated Press.
Regional Relations
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro signed a decree banning coal exports to Israel, an effort to pressure Israel’s government to end the conflict in Gaza, reports Bloomberg.
Colombia
ELN commander Antonio García accused the Colombian government of delaying negotiations with the country’s largest remaining guerrilla group in order to “militarily dismember the ELN.” (Silla Vacía)
Haiti
Haitian police tear gassed hundreds of peaceful protesters in Port-au-Prince yesterday. The demonstrators asked law enforcement to help them stop the gangs that have been violently seizing control of their neighborhoods, reports the Associated Press.
Nicaragua
The Nicaraguan government’s decision to eliminate 1,500 civil society organizations in one fell swoop yesterday was notable because it included hundreds of Evangelical churches, a sign that the Ortega administration is expanding its effort to silence religious leaders and close off any independent space not affiliated with the government, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Regional
Latin American countries agreed to form a regional alliance against organized crime, under the aegis of the Inter-American Development Bank. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay will join the alliance and Ecuador has committed itself to assume the first presidency. (El País)
Venezuela
Venezuelan attorney general Tarek William Saab said opposition leaders, including María Corina Machado, could face legal charges for the deaths that happened in protests following the July 28 presidential election. “Human rights organizations as well as international groups have accused Saab of being one of the key people in the regime’s efforts to use the Venezuelan justice system as an instrument of political persecution,” notes the Miami Herald.
WOLA President Carolina Jimenez Sandoval and Laura Cristina Dib, WOLA’s director for Venezuela, said the July “elections and the ensuing resistance and repression, although familiar, are without precedent in Venezuela. They discuss new forms of civic resistance, including engagement from the Venezuelan diaspora, and activity among youth and among popular social media influencers.”
Venezuela’s new “‘anti-NGO law’ blatantly violates freedom of association and the right to participate in public affairs, among other rights. It marks yet another crackdown by Nicolás Maduro’s government against those fighting for human rights in Venezuela,” according to Amnesty International.
Maduro is hoping to settle the contested presidential election in Venezuela’s top court, “yet, for decades, Venezuela’s judiciary has turned into a branch of the executive and of the ruling party PSUV,” notes the Caracas Chronicles.
“Amid the polarized conflict between the government and opposition, critical leftist voices struggle to advance their own political demands,” writes Yoletty Bracho in Nacla.
The New York Times reports on the five top Machado aides who have been living in an Argentine diplomatic residence for five months, after seeking protection from arrest.
Brazil
“Police in São Paulo have frozen bank accounts holding over a billion dollars in an anti-money laundering operation that highlights the growing use of cryptocurrency by Brazil’s most powerful prison gang, the First Capital Command,” reports InSight Crime.
Oil exploration in Brazil’s Cabo Orange national park is nearly a certainty given political pressure from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reports Folha de S. Paulo, but a spill on the border with French Guiana would be environmentally disastrous.
Regional
As the climate crisis advances across Latin America, women are on the front lines, defending their communities’ access to water, reports Nacla.
Chile
Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet insists she will not seek the presidency again, but her name keeps coming up in polls, evidence that generational turnover has been lacking in politics, according to El País. (La Tercera)
Paraguay
A Paraguayan lawmaker with the governing Colorado party was killed in pre-dawn police raid targeting his home, “a grim reminder of the web of collusion between politicians’ families and organized crime in Paraguay,” reports the Associated Press.
A year into Paraguayan “President Santiago Peña’s term, the economy is doing well. However, critics worry about rule of law and the influence of a powerful former leader,” writes Lawrence Blair in Americas Quarterly.