Presidents are often defined by their first crisis, and Mexico’s new leader is facing a big one: a clash of democratic institutions that could fundamentally upend the country.
On one side is the judiciary. It has come out in full force against the governing party’s complete overhaul of the courts. Federal judges and some Supreme Court justices argue that the changes violate the Constitution and could endanger the country’s democracy.
On the other side is the governing party, Morena. Its congressional leaders have vowed to charge ahead with their plans despite hundreds of legal challenges from the courts. They say the changes are needed to curb judicial corruption.
Next week may present a major test for the president: The Supreme Court will rule on whether to strike down key parts of the overhaul, setting up a direct confrontation between two pillars of government that, legal scholars say, has little to no precedent in recent Mexican history.
How President Claudia Sheinbaum navigates this moment will offer a window into how she wields her power — and what her vision for the country really is. These are questions that have lingered in the minds of many Mexicans since Morena swept the June elections.
Will the president, a scientist by training and a leftist to the core, pursue the aims of her party without giving an inch? Or will she show some flexibility?
And how much control does she actually have over the powerful figures within her own political movement, who control both houses of Congress and are refusing to budge?
“This is a crisis that tests the authority of the executive,” said Ana Laura Magaloni, a legal expert based in Mexico City. “If she doesn’t handle it well, she might lose control of the country’s direction.”
The overhaul of the courts was initially championed by Ms. Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It requires that nearly all the nation’s judges be elected. It also subjects them to review by a disciplinary board made up of elected officials, which critics worry will be a tool for exercising political control over the justice system.
Mr. López Obrador, Ms. Sheinbaum and their allies have argued that the redesign will help eradicate endemic corruption and nepotism in the courts. Congress pushed it through just days before the former president’s term ended in September.
“We are building a true rule of law in our country,” Ms. Sheinbaum told reporters in October, adding that Mexico’s experiment “will be an example to the world.”
But in a country that just endured one of its most violent election campaign cycles in recent memory, with at least 41 killings of people who were seeking public office, many worry that making judges run for their posts will give organized crime and political actors more influence over how justice is done.
For two months, thousands of workers in the federal court system have been on strike to protest the overhaul. There have already been more than 500 legal challenges to the measure, and several federal judges have ruled in favor of suspending its approval and implementation.
Eight of the nation’s 11 Supreme Court justices said this week that they would step down from their posts rather than run for election next summer.
So far, the president and her allies have largely ignored the legal challenges.
In October, Congress passed a bill that would prevent any legal challenges to constitutional amendments, like the judicial overhaul, on anything but procedural grounds. Most state legislatures have approved that measure, paving the way for the president to sign it into law.
Legal scholars say that could allow lawmakers to reshape the Constitution without any judicial review, even from the Supreme Court.
Next week, the Supreme Court will consider a resolution to invalidate crucial parts of the judicial overhaul, which could set up a battle with the executive and legislative branches.
If eight of the 11 justices vote to strike down those elements, including the election of local and federal judges, they cannot legally take effect, legal experts said. Morena officials have already said that lawmakers would disregard such a ruling.
“A judge is not above the people of Mexico,” Ms. Sheinbaum said at a news conference in October. This week, she called the Supreme Court resolution an inappropriate attempt by the justices to legislate.
If the court does approve the resolution, the president will have two options, analysts say.
She could follow the lead of the hard-line power brokers in her party and ignore it. Or she could heed it, and negotiate a way out of the dispute that achieves her party’s goals without rejecting the court’s authority.
Defying the justices would thrust the country into uncharted territory, legal scholars say.
“If the court makes a decision and the other branches disregard it, at that point we cease to be a constitutional democracy,” said Pedro Salazar, a scholar of constitutional law at the Law Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Accepting the ruling, on the other hand, “would defuse this conflict,” Mr. Salazar said. “It would be an act of democratic respect.”
Yet many argue that Ms. Sheinbaum and her Morena party have few incentives to compromise.
She campaigned for office promising to deliver just the kind of overhaul that lawmakers passed — and she won with the largest margin of victory of any president since Mexico transitioned to democracy in 2000. The governing bloc also secured effective supermajorities in both houses of Congress and most state legislatures and governorships.
“Morena won at the polls and has the right to change the way the judicial system works,” said Viri Ríos, a political analyst based in Mexico City. “To forget that is to forget how democracy works and what a democracy is.”
The overhaul also presents potential political spoils for legislators, who analysts say may be able to influence the election of powerful judges with the authority to determine the outcome of business disputes worth billions.
But dismissing the groundswell of judicial challenges, and possibly defying the Supreme Court itself, would create serious problems for the new president. As part of the overhaul, voters would elect about 7,000 new judges over two years, a massive undertaking that could be expensive and difficult to organize.
Sorting through that process while fending off hundreds of challenges to the law itself would almost certainly drain energy from the rest of the president’s sprawling agenda, including her promises to curb drug cartels’ rampant violence and push forward with a clean energy transition.
But perhaps the greatest risk, analysts say, is the reputational damage Mexico could face if it becomes a country where Supreme Court rulings have no meaning.
“There are big risks, above all in how this is perceived by different actors, particularly the markets, investors, business leaders and the United States,” said Blanca Heredia, a political analyst in Mexico City. “There would be no legal certainty for investment.”
For now, a shadow hangs over the country’s legal profession. Leticia Bonifaz, a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the next generation of lawyers is already starting to wonder whether their careers will have any value in the near future.
“I already have some students telling me: ‘Professor, I don’t want to continue writing my thesis because I no longer see the point,’” Ms. Bonifaz said. “Imagine how I feel. And how could I possibly tell them it’s worth it?”
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