Andrea Becerril and Gustavo Castillo
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, November 3, 2024, p. 3
Of the total of 1,559 active judges and magistrates in the country, 820, which is more than half, declined to participate in the June 2025 election, according to the lists on that matter that the Senate made public yesterday.
The number of those who decided not to run exceeds the 721 who were selected, via insaculation, to go to the polls in that extraordinary process next year in which, for the first time in the history of the country, the positions of judges will be defined with the popular vote.
Among those who declined the electoral process are some of those who have processed hundreds of amparos to stop the judicial reform, among them the 19th district judge, based in Coatzacoalcos, Nancy Juárez Salas, who threatened to imprison President Claudia Sheinbaum if she did not removed from Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) the publication of that controversial constitutional modification.
Also judges and magistrates who authored other controversial rulings, such as in favor of drug traffickers and those involved in the Ayotzinapa case.
By agreement of the plenary session, the Senate decided to make public the lists of judges and magistrates who, in accordance with the call for the June 2025 election, had to notify before October 30 if they would participate in those elections. Since they did it individually, there was great confusion, and the board of directors, headed by Morenista Gerardo Fernández Noroña, had to break down the information into several annexes.
To begin with, 333 judges and 487 magistrates formally expressed their decision not to seek that position in the extraordinary elections that the INE will organize. Those 820 positions, which represent 52.5 percent of the total with an incumbent, will anyway be filled in June 2025, along with the 139 vacancies that had already been decided to be in contention next year.
Even judges and magistrates who, in the last raffle, had to participate in the 2027 election, decided to decline from now on.
The Senate also received 123 notifications from judges who declined to run for the same position they now hold, but aspire to change courts or circuit courts, or fight for a higher position. Two want to be ministers of the Court.
Before sending the final list to the INE, the Upper House must determine the case of 30 judges who cover interim positions and judges in the breastfeeding process.
It stands out that among those who refused to go to the 2025 election are many of those who have been strongly criticized, such as the third district judge of amparo and federal trials, of Chiapas, Felipe Consuelo Soto, who granted the first suspension against the judicial reform , last August, but which has in its history the cases of Mexicana de Aviación y Oceanografía.
Also Judge Sergio Santamaría Chamú, head of the first district court based in Morelia, who four days ago granted a provisional suspension in favor of more than 1,300 judges against the judicial reform; already threatened to charge even for betrayal of the country
to President Sheinbaum, in case of contempt.
Among the judges who prefer to leave rather than compete are other judges with controversial rulings, such as Gerardo Genaro Alarcón, who is handling the trial against Emilio Lozaya for the Odebrecht case; Ricardo Guzmán Wolffer, who protected the president of Mexicans against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), María Amparo Casar, so that Pemex would reimburse her widow’s pension in dispute.
Or Judge Yolanda Cecilia Chávez Montelongo, who acquitted Ramón Ángel of charges of crimes against health and organized crime. The R-1then considered second in command of the Jalisco cartel New Generation. Others have been sanctioned for workplace and sexual harassment.
