MEXICO CITY (CN) — Judiciary employee pension and benefit funds that had been put on the chopping block are safe — for now — after a federal judge on Monday blocked their liquidation while the issue plays out in Mexican courts.
The trade association of federal magistrates and judges that filed a writ of amparo in the case announced the decision in a statement posted to social media on Monday morning. Amparo is analogous to habeas corpus in U.S. law.
During the suspension, "the money in said funds will continue to be applied in order to fulfill their purpose and their originally determined objectives,” while a federal court analyzes the group’s amparo case, the statement said.
The 13 funds at issue recently became the target of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s campaign to discredit and malign the country’s judiciary.
After calling the judiciary “rotten,” floating the idea of filling the Supreme Court bench via popular vote and accusing the court's 11 justices of violating the constitution by making more money than he does, López Obrador went after the employee funds, claiming they foster corruption.
As with the popular vote proposal, legislators from the president’s ruling Morena party picked up the idea and ran with it, and the Senate passed a bill to eliminate the funds in late October.
The case likely has a long way to go before the courts resolve the issue, according to Rodrigo Brito Melgarejo, a law professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.
“Much depends on what the analysis for this particular case will entail and whether or not they decide to question those involved,” he said. “I think this will be a long, drawn-out process."
In the end, however, the lower court will likely grant the writ of amparo that the trade association solicited, since the funds have to do with hard-fought labor rights, Brito said. The case will likely be appealed and end up making its way to Mexico’s Supreme Court.
No matter how the courts rule, Brito said, López Obrador is not likely to let up on his campaign against Mexico’s judges.
“The president’s discourse has attempted to attack the judiciary and weaken the public’s trust in it, to diminish its autonomy and the support that such an institution requires, and it looks like that discourse is going continue in that vein,” he said.
The final decision could act as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for López Obrador, Brito explained: If the courts were to grant the amparo, then the president would be able to claim that the branch is acting out of self-interest, rather than legal precedent.
“It’ll only strengthen his discourse,” Brito said.
Political analyst José Antonio Crespo agreed with Brito that this particular case won't go López Obrador’s way, but that his campaign against the judiciary is finding success elsewhere.
Justice Loretta Ortiz Ahlf, a López Obrador appointee who has been extremely loyal to him during her tenure, recently spoke out against the initiative.
“Even she — being so close to López Obrador — refused this reform, so I don’t think this is going well for him, except in the media” Crespo said. “He continues to say that the judiciary is corrupt, full of privileged elites. This can help him in the campaigns, but this specific reform is not going to go his way.”
One of the president’s initiatives that does appear to be bearing fruit is playing out in the lower house of Mexico’s Congress, where federal deputies are hashing out next year’s budget.
“They can cut the judiciary’s budget, and that’s exactly what they’re going to do,” he said. “López Obrador’s party has the absolute majority in the lower house that it needs to cut the judiciary’s budget, and that will affect the functioning of the Supreme Court.”
Follow @copycopeland
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
