Iván Evair Saldaña
La Jornada newspaper
Friday, September 12, 2025, p. 9
In its debut, the so -called New Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) met yesterday for four hours in an environment of premieres, symbolism and disastrous procedures.
Of the 15 issues planned for the day they barely resolved three, including one in which they clarified the criteria that forced to invalidate laws due to lack of prior consultation to people with disabilities. They also broke their own rules: they ignored the regulation of sessions approved the previous week by discussing unconstitutionality actions instead of administrative and labor issues, and exceeded again and again the time limit that for the first time set for each intervention.
The session marked the beginning of the jurisdictional works of the new integration chosen by popular vote on June 1, inaugurated by the president Minister, Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, with a first pronouncement in Mixteco, his native language, without verifying the quorum and giving his first blow with the Mallete. Eight ministers participated in person and Arístides Rodrigo Guerrero García connected remotely for convalescing of a road accident last month.
The first matter was the action of unconstitutionality 186/2023, project of Minister Yasmín Esquivel Mossa against Chihuahua health laws. With this, the ministers left behind the criteria of the old court – which closed its period on August 31 – by clarifying the rule that forced to annul rules for not consulting people with disabilities, and now the case will be analyzed.
The change was interpreted as a triumph of Minister Lenia Batres Guadarrama, who since her arrival in December 2024 questioned that in recent years the previous plenary annulled 56 norms – even progressive – only for breaching that requirement, privileging the procedure on the fund. “It is a perversion that I think we can stop in the criteria of this new Court of Social Justice,” Lenia said.
Aguilar, with a conciliatory role, also gave the reason to Batres: invalidate “the rule for the mere fact that there was no consultation … we will be giving him a higher level than to substantive right.”
Ornament clock
The regulation of sessions published last week in the Official Gazette of the Federation He set 10 minutes for the initial exhibition, seven for the first round, five for the answer, five for the second round and three for the replica. But it was not respected: Aguilar did not mark limits or cut interventions. On the contrary, I asked if someone else wanted to speak while a stopwatch on the wall became mere ornament. The session maintained a technical and legal language, as in previous times, far from the promised citizen tone.
For the first time since March 18, 2020, access to students and journalists to the Plenary Hall was allowed. At the beginning, security personnel tried to prohibit cameras and cell phones, but 20 minutes later the communication area of the Court was apologized and clarified that the measure had been left behind. Even some young people who fell asleep were retired and returned 20 minutes later.
There were other symbols of change and rupture. José de Jesús Cruz Sibaja, teacher in Law and “Institutional Voice” of the Court since 2005, no longer presented the session, absent for the first time since the debates were televised.
Inside the plenary, the ministers showed confusion: last minute proposals were put in the voting; Minister Irving Espinosa Betanzo confused the headline calling him “President Magistrate” and Giovanni Azael Figueroa asked to respect the order and discussion process before the jump of topics.
In total, only three of the 15 listed issues were discussed; The first consumed two hours with 12 minutes and an announced recess of 10 ended up lasting 16. Minister Loretta Ortiz was the one that most contrasted with the majority, voting in different senses several times and marking the first open differences of the new court.
