Judiciary under presidential siege 2023/10/14

Submit, break, subjugate, tame and subdue the Judiciary, especially the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), chaired by the minister Norma Piñaare the true motivations for the initiative that adds a second paragraph to article 224 of the Organic Law of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (LOPJF), presented by the deputy Ignacio Mier in the Chamber of Deputies last September

The initiative that, strangely, was ruled by the Budget and Public Accounts Commission, is headed by the Morenista Erasmo González Robledo (instead of having been done by the Justice Commission, chaired by the PAN member Felipe Macías Olvera) aims to establish that, within the Judicial Branch of the Federation (PJF), there are no other funds and trusts that are expressly provided for by the LOPJF.

The reasons given by the deputy for presenting the initiative include, first of all, “social discontent” caused by the privileges enjoyed by ministers. The data is not from Inegi or from any Morena pollster, but from what the deputy Wed perceived on social networks and the media. A second motivating element “denounced by public opinion and taken into consideration” was the existence of 14 trusts in the PJF (five, in the SCJN; six, in the Federal Judiciary Council (CJF) and two in the Electoral Tribunal ), whose sum of funds results in the amount of 20 thousand 149 million pesos and its resources (according to the deputy) are used mainly to maintain the benefits of ministers, counselors and magistrates throughout their lives.

For greater precision, the speaker clarifies that only one of these 14 trusts: the Support Fund for the Administration of Justice, established by the CJF, finds support in specific provisions of the LOPJF, for this reason, the resources found in the 13 trusts that are proposed to disappear would be returned to the Federation.

If it were not for the fact that the presidential siege against the Judiciary is public knowledge, one might believe that the deputy's motivations Wed and the allied parties that voted in favor of the ruling, have good intentions, however, it is clear that, since the minister Norma Piña assumed the presidency of the SCJN, the president Lopez Obradorintensified its attacks against the judges, magistrates and ministers, therefore, it is not the economic privileges that concern them, but the independence with which the PJ and especially the SCJN acts, on issues such as that of the INE, non-militarization and the decriminalization of abortion, among other issues.

The reform initiative is, clearly, an interference against the independence of the Judiciary, but, above all, it is an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the minister president and the ministers of the SCJN. However, what neither the head of the Executive Branch nor Morena and its allies did not measure is the possible response of the affected community, that is, of all the people who, directly or indirectly, will be affected by the disappearance of the trusts.

In this regard, the SCJN itself clarified that six of the trusts are related to workers' labor rights, for example, social security: pension, housing, health coverage and retirement. Other trusts are related to the implementation of actions derived from constitutional and legal reforms, for example, in matters of justice, labor or international treaties such as the T-MEC.

In this context, it is foreseeable that if the reform is approved by the Congress of the Union (a qualified majority is not required), on the one hand, the parliamentary opposition will use legal mechanisms to stop the reform, that is, they will promote an action of unconstitutionality. and, on the other hand, all the people who will be affected also seek protection and/or take to the streets to protest for their rights.