So why will the judicial election affect women?
In addition to the early departure of judges and ministers, other consequences derived from the reform remain to be seen.
Espinosa Almaguer, also a teacher in criminal policy, explains that another problem that the dismissed judges will have to face will be their job relocation.
“The areas in which women lawyers develop are very risky work spaces, very insecure at work, it is much more likely, due to the biases that the Law has, that male men will get a job, than that women will achieve it,” she expresses. Thorny.
“The yardstick by which men and women professionals are measured in this race is very unequal and now everything has been thrown in the trash for judges and ministers.”
Furthermore, the requirement for candidates to comply with the so-called 3 out of 3 of violence against women was not included in the General Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures (Legipe) – reformed to enable the election of judicial positions.
This consists of proving that they have not been convicted of exercising violence against women in its forms against bodily integrity, sexual freedom, family or domestic violence, or being a food debtor, among others.
Although this requirement was not specified, it has already been in the Constitution since 2023, so the National Electoral Institute (INE) must monitor its compliance. However, until now this has been ineffective, since the existence of a final judicial ruling is required and this can take years of litigation.
“The INE of course can take it into account, it should take it into account, it is not obliged. The issue is that it is not obligatory and well, we have a problem there,” added Deputy Mercado, from MC.
Vázquez Correa, from the Belisario Domínguez Institute, also recognizes that at this point there could be difficulties in compliance, since the INE has already faced them in constitutional elections.
Now that the positions of the Judiciary are already elective, the reform on gender violence applies to these candidates.
“But due to the experience we have and the limitations that the INE has faced, I believe that the electoral process of the Judicial Branch will not be exempt,” recognizes Vázquez Correa.
The main obstacle, and which was not considered in the Legipe, is that the federal entities and institutions have not prepared and/or have not made public their lists of violators, not even those of food debtors, and no deadline was imposed to force them to that transparency.
For example, the information on food debtors should have been made transparent years ago and only 15 states have updated their list, so the INE has been unable to cross-check data and comply with the regulations.
Another latent difficulty, raised by feminist lawyer Claudia Espinosa Almaguer, is the possibility of there being candidates from people who identify themselves as women and occupy spaces that correspond to them.
This scenario is not far off if one considers that, in the elections for government positions, since the rights of every person to non-discrimination are guaranteed, it has been abused.
Remember, for example, the case of her native San Luis Potosí, where “many male candidates for municipal presidents said under protest to tell the truth that they felt like women and the electoral body admitted their candidacies.”
However, it was a strategy to take advantage of the parity rules, so – Espinosa indicates – women could also face this obstacle by having to fight for their spaces, now also in the Judiciary.
