Electoralized Court-Curbing: The Mexican Judicial Independence Case and Its Implications for Democracy.

Register

Fernando Ojesto Martinez Manzur
Kellogg Institute Guest Scholar
 

This paper examines the erosion of judicial independence in Mexico as a case study of democratic backsliding through court-curbing strategies. It argues that the 2024–2025 judicial reform, which replaced the judiciary through popular elections, represents a new form of electoralized court-curbing—the instrumentalization of electoral mechanisms and democratic rhetoric to dismantle judicial autonomy. Situating Mexico within broader Latin American patterns of illiberal transformation, the paper traces how President López Obrador’s confrontation with counter-majoritarian institutions evolved from delegitimization to constitutional engineering, culminating in the politicization of the courts. Through an analysis of legislative processes, electoral distortions, and the first judicial elections, it demonstrates how democratic procedures were used to erode checks and balances from within—revealing the paradox of using elections, democracy’s hallmark, to dismantle its core institution: an independent judiciary.