The Supreme Court of Mexico went on strike to protest the socialist president's sweeping reform of the nation's judicial system.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants all judges in the country to be elected by popular vote. Obrador is popular in Mexico, but the Supreme Court has been an obstacle to his far-left agenda.
He accuses the courts of systemic corruption, but his critics say Lopez Obrador is trying to destroy checks and balances in a partisan power grab. Skeptics also fear the reform will expose the courts to corruption by Mexico's drug cartels.
The reform passed Mexico's lower house of Congress on Wednesday, where Obrador's Morena party has a two-thirds majority. The legislators approved the bill in a sports hall after protesters blocked the entrance to the Congress building.
“We should inaugurate a wall of shame that says: ‘Today begins the fall of our Republic.’ And it should have the date and all the faces of the Morena congressmen,” Paulina Rubio Fernández, a congresswoman from the conservative opposition National Action Party, said before the vote.
Judges, law students, and court employees have been protesting the measure as a majoritarian power grab that would end democracy. The Supreme Court joined the demonstrations Tuesday, with eight voting in favor of joining the strikes and three against.
The reform bill heads to the Senate next, where it is likely to pass by razor-thin margins. Lopez Obrador's party, Morena, won elections in a landslide months ago. He wants the reform finalized before his term ends in September.
Lopez Obrador's successor, president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum is an ally of his who supports the reform.
“If judges, magistrates, and ministers are elected by the people, where is the authoritarianism?” she wrote in a post defending the move.
The proposal has faced pushback from international observers, including the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar and Canadian Ambassador Graeme Clark. Lopez Obrador put relations with both countries on "pause" in response.
"They have to learn to respect Mexico's sovereignty," he said.
The fight in Mexico mirrors the controversy over the U.S. Supreme Court, which President Biden has condemned as "extreme." Biden has proposed term limits to rein in the top court's conservative majority, which has often pushed back on his liberal priorities.
