IACHR asked to halt judicial reform

MEXICO CITY (El Universal).— Approximately 1,100 Circuit judges and magistrates requested that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) urgently exercise its powers under Article 41 of the American Convention on Human Rights to prevent judicial reform.

In a press conference, Judge José Manuel Torres said that this reform points towards a coup d’état masked under a democratising discourse, which in reality seeks the total concentration of power that nullifies the essential principles of democracy itself: limited and limitable democratic power.

“We would like to make the Commission aware that the first step in this direction has already been taken, weeks of supposed dialogues, only simulated, which gave rise to a decision scheduled to be discussed in the Chamber of Deputies.

“This even exacerbates the coup attempt and makes it even clearer that there is absolutely no concern for improving justice in Mexico,” he said.

“They are not interested in the rights of the people, they only want to concentrate all the power. They are on the eve of the next step, the announced approval of the supposed reform to get rid of those who, due to their independent actions, as judges supported by their technical capacity, a product of the judicial career and removed from interests outside each case, especially political ones, have been a brake on their abuses of power. They intend to appoint judges of constitutional control by popular election. This, through a mechanism as arbitrary as it is random that guarantees their submission.

“They do not want judges who limit arbitrary actions, they want people who pretend to be judges and who endorse all the actions of the rulers in office. They want an access model that guarantees loyalty to the party in power instead of loyalty to the rights of the people,” he said.

“This request that we are making to the Commission is based on international standards, including that the mass dismissal of people on trial is an internationally illegal act as it is a clear attack on multiple human rights and especially on access to justice, judicial protection and judicial guarantees,” he stressed.

The PAN Legal fight

PAN prepares international legal battle against judicial reform.

On an international scale

The PAN parliamentary group is preparing to wage “a social movement struggle and a legal battle, even in international instances,” such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said PAN deputy Héctor Saúl Téllez.

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