Coparmex caution – Yucatan Newspaper

MEXICO CITY (EFE).— The Mexican Employers’ Confederation (Coparmex) is preparing a proposal to avoid risks to the arrival of new private investments, due to the judicial reform that Morena is promoting in Congress to elect judges and ministers by popular vote, which fosters legal uncertainty and uncertainty regarding the rule of law.

To this end, the Mexican employers’ association began a series of forums throughout the country yesterday, Monday, where experts and recognized lawyers will express their opinion regarding the reform of the Federal Judicial Branch (PJF) of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, part of his latest package of legal changes to the Constitution, prior to the arrival of the new administration on October 1.

“There is a great potential for fresh investment and we have to give legal certainty to investment, and that is why the objective is to find how to improve the Judiciary so that there is greater legal certainty and with this we can have better development,” said José Medina Mora, president of Coparmex, yesterday Monday at the first forum.

The leader of the entity that brings together more than 36,000 Mexican businessmen responsible for 30 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), warned that this reform worries businessmen “from the economic point of view of the country.”

Medina Mora revealed that investment projects, which are authorized and have financing, are halted due to the legal uncertainty caused by the reform of the PJF.

“What they have told us (the companies interested in investing) is that if Mexico participates in the election of judges, magistrates and ministers by popular vote, they will stop those investments and that is what worries us,” he said.

He even criticised the fact that most foreign direct investment is mostly reinvested profits and very little “new and fresh” investment.

In this regard, he considered that the impact might be very large due to the “great investment potential” derived from the phenomenon of the relocation of companies or “nearshoring”.

Medina Mora also stressed that the positions of judges, magistrates and ministers are not elected by popular vote, as they do not defend any territorial demarcation, but rather they oversee the application of the law.

He also regretted that the PJF is seeking to eliminate the judicial career, which forced lawyers to take competitions based on knowledge and experience in order to be promoted to judge, magistrate or even minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.

Medina Mora considered that this system should be extended to the states and localities of the Mexican territory instead of being eliminated by elections.

“Non-viable”

For his part, Juan Pablo Campos González, project manager at the German foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Siftiung Mexico, described the proposal that judges and magistrates be elected by popular vote as “unfeasible” and as an attack on the independence and autonomy of Mexican judges. He said that it also involves a very large organizational exercise since 4,698 candidates for federal judges and magistrates would have to be chosen, as well as 39,978 local ones.

VisionObstacles

Juan Pablo Campos González sees great difficulties in organizing a popular vote to elect judges

Very large number

This, he said, means that there are a very large number of candidates and very large numbers of ballots at the voting tables that a single person will have to fill out, in addition to the same number of minutes that will have to be verified.

Pre-selection process

For this reason, he also demanded that the reform, if carried out, be accompanied by a pre-selection process that guarantees the suitability, theoretical knowledge and experience necessary to occupy such important positions.