Mexico Clears First Hurdle to Pass Judicial Reform Deal

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Mexico’s judicial reform efforts, a major Ukrainian cabinet reshuffle, and Beijing hosting the China-Africa summit.

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Reforming the Courts

Mexico’s lower house of Congress passed controversial judicial reform legislation on Wednesday that would require the country’s entire judicial branch—around 7,000 judges—to be chosen by popular vote. The marathon voting session lasted more than 12 hours and ended with 359 votes in favor and 135 against. Voting occurred at a nearby gymnasium after protesters blocked the entrance to Mexico’s congressional building.

Under the reform deal, all judges would stand for election, which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador argues would make the courts more accountable to Mexican voters. Supreme Court justices are currently nominated by the president and approved by senators. The legislation would also reduce the number of Supreme Court justices from 11 to nine; cut their term limits from 15 to 12 years; eliminate the minimum age requirement, which was 35; and lower the amount of prior experience needed from 10 to five years.

López Obrador has long been critical of Mexico’s Supreme Court, especially after it blocked several of his proposed policy changes. He has repeatedly accused the judicial system of being corrupt and inefficient and has rushed to pass the legislation before his term ends on Sept. 30. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of López Obrador, has promised to back the reform deal.

Yet critics say the new policies could make judges vulnerable to influence from powerful local figures, including members of organized crime, and that they could allow López Obrador’s Morena party to take control of all three branches of government, nudging Mexico closer to one-party rule. “The intention of this reform is to eliminate once and for all the checks and balances that have put a limit to the concentration of power,” opposition lawmaker Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas said. Those against the reform legislation also argue that it does not address other key problems in the courts, such as impunity and chronic underfunding.

Protests have erupted across the country against López Obrador’s reform efforts, with Supreme Court justices being the latest to join labor strikes. “We should inaugurate a wall of shame that says, ‘Today begins the fall of our Republic.’ And it should have the date and all the faces of the Morena congressmen,” lawmaker Paulina Rubio Fernández said. Mexico’s peso fell 0.4 percent against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday over the vote’s implications.

The proposed legislation has also sparked regional concerns. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar warned last month that “popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.” Canadian Ambassador to Mexico Graeme Clark echoed this sentiment, saying that Canadian investors are also concerned. In response, López Obrador put relations with the U.S. and Canadian embassies “on pause.”

“They have to learn to respect Mexico’s sovereignty,” he said, though Sheinbaum later clarified that formal diplomatic and trade relations would not be affected.

The proposed deal must now go to the Senate, where it is expected to pass. López Obrador’s Morena party is just one vote shy of the required two-thirds majority needed in the Senate. That vote could occur as early as Thursday. The legislation must also be approved by Mexico’s 32 state congresses, where the Morena party secured a majority in landslide general elections in June.

Today’s Most Read

What We’re Following

Cabinet shake-up. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba submitted his resignation on Wednesday ahead of an anticipated major cabinet reshuffle. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced last week that he plans to shake up his administration to seek “new energy” to defeat Moscow in the Russia-Ukraine war, which has now lasted more than two years.

On Tuesday, Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin; Justice Minister Denys Maliuska; Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, who oversaw efforts to reintegrate the Russian-occupied territories; and Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna, who focused on Ukraine’s relations with Europe, also submitted their resignations. Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets and Vitaliy Koval, the head of the State Property Fund, have also stepped down, making this Kyiv’s largest cabinet reshuffle since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Kuleba’s resignation announcement comes the same day that a Russian drone and missile attack killed seven people in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near Ukraine’s border with Poland. Emergency services said 53 people, including seven children, were injured in the assault. In the past 24 hours, Russian forces have also targeted energy and other critical infrastructure across nine regions, local officials reported on Wednesday.

London Grenfell Tower fire. British authorities published the findings of a six-year public inquiry on Wednesday into the deadly London Grenfell Tower blaze, which killed 72 people in June 2017. “The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable,” inquiry chair Martin Moore-Bick said. The report cited “decades of failure” by the government and construction industry and blamed the firms responsible for fitting and maintaining the 24-story building’s flammable cladding.

Moore-Bick emphasized that while not all parties involved bore the same weight of responsibility, many of them demonstrated some degree of incompetence, dishonesty, and greed. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer apologized to the victims and their loved ones on Wednesday for the country’s failures. Prosecutors are now expected to begin charging those responsible, with London Mayor Sadiq Khan suggesting that authorities ban companies involved in the fire from receiving public contracts.

China-Africa summit. Dozens of African leaders convened in Beijing on Wednesday for the 2024 summit of the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation. During the three-day event, Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with African heads of state and government to discuss China’s Belt and Road Initiative, tech and energy investments, critical minerals, and Africa’s role in the United Nations. Eswatini will be the only African country absent, as it has no formal ties with China and instead recognizes Taiwan.

“China shall never waver in its determination to pursue greater solidarity and cooperation with Africa,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

Xi hopes to bolster Chinese influence on the African continent to help counter U.S. and European interests there. Beijing is Africa’s biggest trading partner as well as its largest creditor, and Chinese officials predict that bilateral trade could reach $300 billion by 2035. “The more complex the international situation becomes, the more global south countries must uphold independence,” Xi told South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday as the two announced a new deal to rebalance trade and improve jobs for South Africans.

Odds and Ends

It may be September, but it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas … in Venezuela. President Nicolás Maduro announced on Monday that the holiday of jingle bells and Santa’s elves will be held on Oct. 1 instead of Dec. 25. The new schedule appears to be a way for Maduro to distract the public from a government crackdown against protesters who maintain that opposition leader Edmundo González rightfully won the country’s July presidential election.

The post Mexico Clears First Hurdle to Pass Judicial Reform Deal appeared first on Foreign Policy.