López Obrador’s attacks against the judge who suspended the new Electricity Industry Law’s application provoked litigants, judges, and magistrates to seek the intervention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers.
MEXICO CITY (Proceso) – The attacks by López Obrador against Juan Pablo Gómez Fierro, a judge specialized in economic competition who suspended the application of the new Electricity Industry Law, provoked litigants, judges, and magistrates to seek the intervention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego García-Sayán, to follow up on what they consider to be threats to the autonomy and independence of the Judicial Branch.
Litigants, judges, and magistrates in Mexico have established contact with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego García-Sayán, because of what they consider to be one of the greatest threats to the autonomy of the Federal Judicial Branch (PJF) in the last 25 years.
Grouped in the National Association of Circuit Magistrates and District Judges of the Federal Judiciary (Jufed), the judges have requested García-Sayán to follow up on the attacks of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador against a judge specialized in economic competition who definitively suspended the application of the new Law of the Electric Industry (LIE).
Judge Juan Pablo Gómez Fierro’s ruling provoked the annoyance of the head of the Federal Executive, who undertook a legal reform to strengthen the powers of the State to the detriment of private participation, although only last February 3 the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation ruled against the monopolistic participation of the State in the electric energy market.
After the President’s attack against the federal judge, Mexican judges and magistrates warn that the threat not only lies in the use of López Obrador’s morning conference to expose, in a biased manner, the uncomfortable rulings of the Second District Judge in Administrative Matters Specialized in Economic Competition, Broadcasting, and Telecommunications, Juan Pablo Gómez Fierro, but also in the governmental proposal of reforms to the Organic Law of the Federal Judicial Power and to the Judicial Career Law of the Federal Judicial Power itself.
According to the judges, these norms establish “very discretionary” margins for the suspension and change of residence, known as “the judges’ reinscription.” The amendments also provide for the elimination of retirement if retired ministers receive fees, as is the case of retired minister José Ramón Cossío, whom the President accused of acting against his government and being part of the lawyers who promoted the appeals against his electricity reform.
Received by the Senate last Friday 12, López Obrador’s government intends that these law initiatives be approved during the current ordinary period of sessions of the Congress of the Union, which ends on April 30.
Federal judges and magistrates see this haste as an attempt to approve a reform without consulting the members of the PJF or other operators of the justice system, with the risk that this represents for judicial independence at the federal level. This danger has been warned to the President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and the Council of the Federal Judiciary, Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea, by those who impart justice.
In public statements, Zaldívar has denied that there is any interference by the Executive in the internal life of the Federal Judiciary… In private, things are very different.
The Yucatan Times
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