Mexico is poised to amend its constitution this weekend to require all judges to be elected as part of a judicial overhaul championed by the outgoing president but slammed by critics as a blow to the country’s rule of law.
The amendment passed Mexico’s Congress on Wednesday, and by Thursday it already had been ratified by the required majority of the country’s 32 state legislatures. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would sign and publish the constitutional change on Sunday.
Legal experts and international observers have said the move could endanger Mexico’s democracy by stacking courts with judges loyal to the ruling Morena party, which has a strong grip on both Congress and the presidency after big electoral wins in June.
I deleted my comment, not really in the mood to argue the many flaws of the judicial system today.
But it’s noteworthy that I don’t believe such a thing as “rule of law” is ever achievable without corruption and that there exist only varying degrees of corruption but more or less every judicial system on earth is corrupt to some extent. I made a much longer writeup responding to you, but again, I felt that I’d rather not spend my day arguing this.
Long and short, the only way the current system works is if you assume that all politicians are acting in good faith and that all voters have equal political power. Neither of these is true on a foundational level, and that is reflected in widespread corruption and manipulation of appointed judges.
I didn’t think we were “arguing” - just a discussion. You’re right that there is no such thing as “rule of law” without corruption. Or government without corruption. Or a fantasy soccer league without corruption. etc. All human things are corrupted by bad people.
The point is not to remove corruption completely, which isn’t possible, but to minimize it and make it less effective.