The Daily Populous Thursday October 31st, 2024 evening edition
Authored by cnn.com and submitted by lala_b11

Eight of 11 justices on Mexico’s Supreme Court have resigned and declined to participate in an election for the court scheduled for June, the court said on Wednesday.

According to a statement, the court’s president, Norma Pina, presented her resignation, as did Luis Maria Aguilar, Jorge Mario Pardo, Alfredo Gutierrez, Alberto Perez, Javier Laynez, Juan Luis Gonzalez and Margarita Rios.

Seven of the jurists’ resignations are effective August 31, 2025, while Aguilar will leave office on November 30.

The resignations are the result of a constitutional overhaul that was enacted last month that requires all judges be elected by popular vote.

The reform requires judges to resign ahead of the June election if they do not want to participate in the electoral process and wish to maintain their pension, or risk losing it, prompting an outcry among judicial workers.

The slate of resignations heightens tensions between Mexico’s Supreme Court and the ruling bloc, increasing the risk of a constitutional crisis as Congress and the presidency remain at odds with the judiciary over the reform.

“It is necessary to underscore that this resignation does not imply an implicit acceptance of the reform’s constitutionality,” said justice Gutierrez in a resignation letter on Tuesday.

In her letter to the Senate on Wednesday, Rios said her resignation “should not be seen as an implicit endorsement of a (reform) framework that remains controversial.”

The 11-member Supreme Court will see its number reduced to nine as part of the reform. Three current justices have publicly backed the reform.

CapitanFlama on October 31st, 2024 at 16:09 UTC »

Mexican here. Electing judges by popular vote is not the big issue here.

The issue here is that in Mexico, we have an autonomous & independent electoral organization that is fully in charge of electoral processes and has run every election for the last +30 years. This entity is completely separated from whoever is in power, and its electoral process is audited in every electoral process. It's also in charge of providing and maintaining an electoral ID that we can use to cast our vote.

The current government wants to get rid of this entity and be sorely in charge of elections. It wants to be the "trust me, bro. You don't need audits. My guy won" of elections.

If they leave the federal elections institute alone, the election of judges won't be an issue: clean, auditable elections, but if they still want to disappear the National Elections Institute it will be the ultimate power grab move.

No_Understanding3344 on October 31st, 2024 at 15:53 UTC »

From the article:

“The resignations are the result of a constitutional overhaul that was enacted last month that requires all judges be elected by popular vote.

The reform requires judges to resign ahead of the June election if they do not want to participate in the electoral process and wish to maintain their pension, or risk losing it, prompting an outcry among judicial workers.”

Obi-wan__Jabroni on October 31st, 2024 at 13:23 UTC »

How do we get this to happen in the United States?