Protesters force Mexico's Senate to change reform debate venue

Mexican senators changed the location of the debate of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s proposal to overhaul the country’s judiciary, after hundreds of protesters opposed to the plan entered the main floor.

The discussion in the Senate of the president’s plan that many consider a threat to the balance of power in Latin America’s second-biggest economy started around 3 p.m. Tuesday in Mexico City and it was suspended after about 90 minutes due to the protest. Debate resumed later in the evening in a former Senate building in the city.

Before the break, Senate President Gerardo Fernández Noroña said the discussion of the bill, which would require all of the country’s federal judges be elected by popular vote, could take more than 30 hours. The plan was approved in the lower house of Congress last week, making the Senate its last major hurdle.

Upon entering the Senate chamber, the protesters, including judiciary workers, yelled, “The judiciary will not fall.” Others demonstrators held banners that read, “Judiciary: national counterweight.”

The ruling Morena party and its allies are only one vote shy of reaching the two-thirds majority required to approve a constitutional reform. “They know that we have the two-thirds (majority) and that’s why they tried to suspend the session,” Fernandez Noroña added.

Government allies seemed to be moving to obtain that majority: one opposition senator requested a leave of absence for health reasons and was replaced by his deputy, whose position on the matter is unclear. Another opposition senator could not be reached by his colleagues, who claimed he and his father had been arrested. The leader of Morena in the Senate, Adan Augusto Lopez, dismissed the allegations, saying both were fine.

‘They’re pressuring us’

If only one opposition senator misses the debate, Morena could reach the majority needed to pass the bill that has been pushed through by AMLO, as the nation’s president is known, in the final 30 days of his mandate.

“We’re not going to support this reform, which is a madness that destroys the judicial system in the country,” Senator Alejandro Moreno, head of the opposition PRI party told reporters before the debate started. “They’re pressuring us, but we stand firm against the reform.”

If it’s approved in the Senate, the plan must then receive the backing of state legislatures — most of them controlled by Morena.

AMLO’s proposal seeks to elect approximately half of Mexico’s federal judges by popular vote in 2025, including all Supreme Court justices. The other half would be replaced in 2027, when electoral court judges are expected to be elected.

The plan is a priority for the outgoing president, who says it will root out judicial corruption. But it has drawn backlash from judges, who have gone on strike against it, as well as the Mexican opposition, investors and the U.S., who all say it will give the ruling party control over the judiciary, eliminating checks and balances to its power.

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(With assistance from Valentine Hilaire.)

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