L
The current battle for the preservation of the Judiciary as it has functioned for decades is the greatest of all those that have taken place in these belligerent years. The transformative effort undertaken by the government, with its proposal for legal reform, aligned all its forces and went into direct confrontation. None of its soldiers were left out; all have felt directly affected.
It is, in fact, the greatest bastion of power, accumulated from distant and staunchly conservative times. A huge shed of judges, magistrates and ministers, with their battalions of bureaucrats, indoctrinated during the prolonged neoliberal hegemony. Around them is lined up a group of law firms that sell their relations with the lawyers they already know perfectly. Legal apparatuses of companies that learned to use the mechanisms of the courts, ideologically related to them and decide according to their requests. The defense of popular interests does not advance in this process of doing justice, because the written law and its interpretations contradict their ambitions, almost as an immovable rule.
The field in which the result is decided is none other than the new Congress of the Union. There, a majority of legislators, with a massive and conscious popular mandate, arrive armed with their model of justice. They face a minority opposition, of a classist nature, with its already traditional, and almost defeated, accumulation model. It is about deciding who will prevail in this tough final confrontation. The opposition has not skimped on calling all its possible allies. These include foreign governments, world-class banks, research centers, media outlets, and even international organizations, to whom they turn in search of help. In these eventful days, some public and private university study centers have added to their positions. They decided to take them to the streets with the traditional student energy. And there they are now, although they do not reach the convenient numbers to show enough muscle to tip the fight in Congress in their favor.
The point of convergence of the opposition’s efforts is to preserve, as they have been set out for decades, the determinations of the Judiciary. They know that this helps them in a definitive way to preserve and prolong their interests. The President obstructs their path and also, although they do not yet fully recognize it, the firm decision of support proclaimed by the president-elect. They insist, with delicate touches, on the convenience that they suppose will be obtained if she separates herself from the current and firm leftist line. At least they suggest a delaying tactic, of prudent waiting, to carry out, in a convenient time, the legal reform. One that already contains certain modifications that make it acceptable, harmless and, at the same time, reparative of their traditional efforts.
Opposition critics do not believe that AMLO will retire, as he repeatedly states. They believe that, in any case, he will continue to act behind the scenes, preventing the new government from deviating from the path marked out by him. They know and fear the accumulated popular spirit that he has gained over the years and the joint adventures with those below. He will not leave, they assure, but will continue to act through the mass organizations that he has formed with his tireless work that, although forced, recognize him. The scope of his social programs falls like heavy triumphs over the negative and fearful neoliberal past. The damage inflicted by the conservatives looking and paying attention to the top is immense. With their convenient actions they produced 100 thousand new poor people continuously. Now they come up against the 100 thousand poor people a month who abandon such a pitiful situation. In this magnificent way, almost 10 million new human beings have accumulated who will be able to give an account of their new life.
But the brave, fearful and bellicose conservatives are not giving up. They have been predicting various and serious crises to occur. They formulate them like swords of high-sounding words. Financial collapses, investment retraction, corporate flight, runs on the peso, clashes everywhere, growing insecurity. In other words, rampant instability that will stop growth, even development, and will lead to a six-year crisis, just as it was customary in the past.
The balance of power in the Senate prevents, due to the opposition’s terminal reluctance to negotiate, reaching an agreement that would form a qualified majority. The constitutional changes would be truncated. The search for a senator who will change the situation is frantic. It seems that, finally, the government will achieve it and there will be successive reforms. The opposition, with all the stigmatization that it has ensured for the so-called traitors
will have to accept, once again, its defeat. The justice model will be able to complete its transformative task without the usual blockage of the Judiciary.
