Judicial Reform in Mexico

June 1, 2025, marked a landmark institutional shift in Mexico. For the first time in the country’s history, it held elections to select all aspects of its judiciary by popular vote. Critics, including scholars and analysts, have described this as a dangerous step toward an authoritarian controlled judiciary, especially given the low turnout rates. This political move, along with others perceived as weakening Western defined democratic systems of checks and balances, calls for reflection when compared to global trends of democratic backsliding outlined in the latest V Dem reports. Although one could argue that this judicial reform alone is not cause for concern, it paints a stark picture when we consider that the ruling party Morena moved in 2024 to eliminate the INAI, an institution that had been a staple of vertical accountability since the collapse of PRI imposed autocratic rule in the early 2000s.

How did Mexico get here, and why now?

Grappling with three decades of systemic institutional corruption, widening economic inequality, and increasing drug related violence, Mexicans elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly referred to as AMLO) as the country’s 58th president. Throughout his presidency, AMLO promoted a vision of significant national change in politics, economics, and social values. This vision, referred to as the Fourth Transformation (4T), was outlined in AMLO’s Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND). The primary themes encapsulated in this vision included an institutional “calibration” to combat corruption and end impunity, often referenced in his morning press conferences (mañaneras). AMLO frequently stated that elite manipulation and bribery of the judicial system had contributed to Mexico’s deeply rooted corruption. Both he and his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, see this reform as a necessary step to tackle the long history of normalized corruption and impunity that Mexicans encounter daily in their institutions.

What does the future of democracy look like in Mexico?

Is this reform a symptom of a much larger trend that some scholars have labeled the “Pink Tide” sweeping across Latin America? Mexico’s judicial reform, although sweeping in scope, is not novel. Bolivia, which has often been characterized as authoritarian, implemented a similar judicial reform in 2011, introducing popular elections for judges. Those elections, however, were marked by low turnout and widespread ballot nullification, raising concerns about politicization and weak legitimacy. Still, recent V Dem reports categorize Bolivia as part of a group of Latin American nations that appear to be moving back toward democratization. Perhaps Mexico could follow a similar trajectory, though Bolivia’s experience also highlights the risks of judicial elections failing to deliver accountability.

Final Thoughts

Democratic backsliding as a field of study is still maturing. As Waldner and Lust (2018) argue, the topic still lacks a strong theoretical foundation for empirical measurement. Considering the longitudinal nature of such analysis, time may be better spent measuring the outcomes of democracy in terms of freedoms rather than the dynamic intricacies of its institutional structure. Governance, in this sense, is a term of art that requires ongoing normative feedback from actors across the system. Perhaps this is why the field of global development has shifted toward the UN’s 2030 SDGs, after reconciling that the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) associated with the Washington Consensus failed to deliver on their promise of improving the lives of historically marginalized groups constrained by entrenched power structures. Mexico’s path forward, whether it strengthens democracy through greater inclusion as argued by its leaders in the election of its judiciary or weakens it through institutional erosion as suggested by the dismantling of INAI, will ultimately point to whether its trajectory resembles that of Bolivia or a deeper slide into democratic backsliding.

The image used in this post was generated using OpenAI's ChatGPT