The TEPJF has resolved various transcendent issues related to gender parity in the context of judicial elections.
The Constitution establishes that after the elections, the INE must assign the judicial charges alternately between women and men.
At the time, the INE issued an agreement in which it balanced the right to be voted with the principle of parity, with a harmonizing sense (INE/CG65/2025).
In said agreement, it established that the alternate allocation had to initiate with women and, thus, would allow the possibility of more magistrates and elected judges.
At the time, the TEPJF considered that this was a justified affirmative action, given the need to reverse the historical disparity in the integration of the jurisdictional organs (SUP-JDC-1284/2025 and accumulated).
In that matter, it was also recognized that the INE complied with the principle of certainty because its criteria established clear and precise rules about how the principle of parity would apply
Now, after the elections, the INE issued the agreements related to the national sum of the election and the assignment of charges in the framework of the judicial election.
Faced with this, in several cases that were recently submitted to the consideration of the TEPJF, various actors promoted disagreement judgments in which they controversial the assignment of the charges.
They pointed out that, with the alternate assignment, parity criteria were not applied correctly. In their opinion, the promoters, having obtained a higher vote, have a “better right” against the candidate man who was winner in each case, having followed the strict alternate assignment rule.
I voted against the projects that proposed to modify the INE alternation agreement with respect to the circuit magistrates elections and district judging persons.
That is, my position was favorable when confirming said agreement, which followed the alternation allocation established by the institute itself.
I considered that there was no basis or need to apply an additional adjustment in gender parity in the allocation of judicial charges, because the rules of said allocation not only fulfilled their purpose of guaranteeing this principle, but even the gender parity objective was exceeded.
I was in favor of maintaining the INE allocation criteria in parity that, in the facts, resulted in a majority assignment of women to the positions of the judicial election (around 60%).
I did not consider that it was suitable for the TEPJF to implement a new affirmative action on parity. An affirmative action could not be implemented after the candidate records, after the campaign and the election day.
In addition, the TEPJF had already validated the alternate and parity agreement prior to the electoral day, with clear, precise and objective rules. Rejecting it now goes against the agreement, of the Constitution itself, as well as the prior resolution of the Court.
In my opinion, it was now necessary to guarantee the principle of legal certainty in judicial elections.
All of the above, however, does not prevent us from thinking about constitutional modifications for the next election, of 2027, which allow maximizing more suitable the rights of traditionally excluded populations.
*The author is the electoral magistrate of the TEPJF.
