Reform or the End of Justice? Mexico Is Split on Plan to Elect Judges.

Even as a sweeping proposal to elect nearly 7,000 judges inches toward law, some Mexicans have protested it. Others welcomed the chance to vote in judges.

Outside Mexico’s Senate building on Tuesday, university students wearing masks and dressed as the country’s Supreme Court justices took turns smashing a black piñata with a stick. The piñata, covered in the word “justicia,” or justice, was filled with fake money — a performance staged to illustrate the supposed corruption plaguing the country’s judiciary.

“The election of judges and magistrates by popular vote is a democratization of one of the most important powers of our country,” said Layla Manilla, 21, one of the participating students, who is studying politics.

Ms. Manilla is one of thousands of Mexicans who have taken to the streets in recent weeks to show their support for — or opposition to — the contentious judicial overhaul championed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his allies, which on Wednesday overcame its last major obstacle when it was narrowly passed in the Senate.

In interviews with The New York Times, Mexicans expressed a range of concerns and aspirations for the measure. Some worried about the end of judicial independence, while others celebrated the chance to vote in the people responsible for distributing justice. Many more were indifferent to the overhaul, unclear on exactly what to expect from the change.

The legislation would shift the judiciary from an appointment-based system, largely grounded in training and qualifications, to one in which voters elect judges and there are fewer requirements to serve. Some 7,000 judges would lose their jobs, from the chief justice of the Supreme Court down to those at state and local courts, and Mexicans could start voting as soon as next year.

The majority of state legislatures adopted the measure by early Thursday — a requirement for its passage — paving the way for its anticipated delivery to Mr. López Obrador to be signed into law.

In the southern state of Yucatán, a group of protesters on Wednesday afternoon stormed the local congress, where Morena and its allies hold a majority. As demonstrators called for them to suspend the vote, chanting “The judiciary will not fall!” and shouting “Listen to us!,” lawmakers decided to delay it. They approved the project a few hours later. Critics of the measures also protested in several other states and tried to barge into congressional buildings, resulting in some injuries.

In recent weeks, more than 50,000 judges and court workers went on strike across the country, and protesters forced their way into the Senate building in Mexico City on Tuesday afternoon before the vote. Senators then moved to a second venue with a large police presence.

The president’s insistence in pushing through the measures has kept financial markets on edge, marked by a roughly 15 percent plunge in the value of the currency, the peso, since early June.

The government argues the measure is crucial for modernizing the judiciary, eradicating corruption and restoring faith in a system marred by graft, nepotism and influence-peddling. Mr. López Obrador’s successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, takes office on Oct. 1 and has fully backed the plan.

However, critics oppose the overhaul, contending that it wouldn’t effectively address corruption, but rather bolster Mr. López Obrador’s nationalist political agenda.

“Judges, magistrates and justices are the voice of the law and the Constitution, not of the people,” said Luis Hernández, 21, a law and economics student, moments after delivering a rousing speech while protesting at the Senate building. “They are the voice of reason. There is no point in having a judicial career if, in the end, you have to be popular to deliver justice.”

José Luis Cázares Gayosso, 55, a federal employee who lives in Iztapalapa, a working-class neighborhood of Mexico City, said that he had problems with the judicial system and that it needed to change. He said it took him too long — four years — to gain custody of his two children after he and his partner separated, and it was resolved only in 2019 after he took legal action against the judge.

Still, Mr. Cázares Gayosso said, he preferred that judges remain appointed but that they be forced to leave office sooner. He said he feared that voting for them might end up giving the country’s ruling party control of the judicial system.

“It’s dangerous to give all of the power to one party,” he said.

Polls commissioned by the Morena party indicate that around 80 percent of respondents think revamping the judicial system is necessary — though other polls have found that more than 50 percent of those surveyed don’t know what the overhaul entails.

“It’s very fashionable now to be of the people, but sometimes the people aren’t informed,” said Juan Diego Naranjo, 28, a plumber in Cancún. “If they’re not going to know much about the judicial candidates, then many won’t go out to vote. If in the presidential, governor and municipal elections many of us didn’t go out to vote, maybe there will be less for judges.”

Mr. Naranjo admitted that he himself didn’t cast a ballot during the 2018 presidential elections, which Mr. López Obrador won, because he didn’t have time to study the campaigns.

Ms. Manilla, the college student who supports the overhaul, said, “There’s never total certainty that majorities will make the right decisions.” But, she added, “if the people make mistakes, then the people are also going to be able to rectify.”

Other Mexicans said they worried there were important pieces missing from the discussion.

Laura Alvarez, 38, a restaurant manager in Monterrey, in northeastern Mexico, said that choosing a judge might improve public confidence. She said she had a terrible experience with the justice system when her daughter was sexually abused and the case was dismissed before it even reached a judge. Still, she felt the judicial overhaul needed more explanation from politicians.

“They’re not telling you, ‘This is what I want to change and this is what I’m going to offer you,’” she said. “That’s why I find myself in the middle. I want more transparency.”

Regardless of their differences on the plan, many Mexicans largely agreed there was a long-overdue need to rid the system of what they called privileges, nepotism and corruption.

Javier Martín Reyes, a law professor at National Autonomous University of Mexico, said that a majority of Mexicans’ interactions with the judiciary were not at the federal level but at the local one — such as labor, family or civil disputes — and that it was here that “more reforms” were needed.

But he said that two important parts of the justice system that the average Mexican dealt with most often — the police and prosecutors — weren’t addressed in the proposal.

“If Mexico today is a country with enormous rates of impunity, it is largely because the vast majority of crimes are not investigated and some that are investigated do not reach conclusions,” Mr. Reyes said. “And those that reach conclusions many times are cases that aren’t sufficiently well assembled or investigated to later be upheld in a tribunal or court.”

After living so long under a system he described as riddled with problems, José Luis Valderrama, a 68-year-old grocery bagger in Monterrey, said it was worth trying something new — especially if voters could elect qualified people.

“Possibly things will change,” he said. “We really don’t know. It’s a matter of trying.”

Chantal Flores contributed reporting from Monterrey, Mexico, and Ricardo Hernández Ruiz from Cancún.