Emir Olivares and Alonso Urrutia
The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, August 24, 2024, p. 4
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador emphasized that the United States’ position against the initiative to reform the Judicial Branch of the Federation (PJF) – expressed on Thursday by its ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar – It is a crude interventionist attitude
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In yesterday’s morning press conference, the president indicated that, hours after those statements, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) sent a diplomatic note in which our country expressed his deep estrangement
for these statements regarding an internal issue and full national sovereignty.
After reporting on said diplomatic communication, the head of the Executive described it as unfortunate and reckless
Salazar’s statement. I hope this doesn’t happen again
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He stressed that the ambassador only He is the spokesperson
and behind its position is the State Department of the neighboring nation.
He said that a note would also be sent to the Canadian delegation, since its emissary, Graeme C. Clark, also spoke out against the initiative under discussion.
On Thursday, Salazar said that the election of judges by popular vote will be a risk
for Mexican democracy and for the economic integration of North America, in addition to the fact that it can making it easier for cartels and other malign actors to take advantage of inexperienced, politically motivated judges
.
On the same day, Clark warned that investors in his country want stability, so they have concerns about the proposed changes to the PJF. Both warned that the USMCA would be put at risk.
Faced with this, López Obrador stressed that his government will not accept interference or representatives of foreign governments intervene in matters that only we Mexicans should resolve and settle.
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He also denied that the aforementioned reform would affect the trade agreement with its two main partners. It’s nothing; that’s something else, it’s part of the propaganda and, with all due respect, part of the interference.
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He said he introduced this constitutional initiative because the PJF is riddled with corruption and at the service of a rapacious minority; it protects white-collar criminals, both domestic and foreign, and is controlled by heads of criminal organizations.
He assured that it is about a completely legal procedure
since it is the president’s power to send initiatives to the Legislature, which approves or rejects them.
The president criticized the fact that trading partners had joined the same day in their positions against the changes to that power: Who are they, with all due respect, to comment on this issue? I don’t know if they realize how the United States and Canada are harmonizing, which is regrettable.
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He projected a hypothetical scenario: “Imagine that Esteban Moctezuma, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, read a document asking why the United States sells or gives away so many weapons to wage wars in Gaza or Ukraine, or anywhere else where innocent people die. What would you answer? ‘Why do you have to get involved?’ We don’t do that.”
Regarding the PJF workers’ strike, he confirmed: We are not going to ask for discounts; on the contrary, we maintain that they are free to demonstrate, that they have nothing to fear, there is no repression of any kind.
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However, he insisted that they should take into account that the people are the judges, and that they should not ignore them, as happened two months ago, in reference to the electoral process, because the politicization of the Mexican people is one of the highest in the world.
