The Senate draws 711 places for the 2025 judicial election

Andrea Becerril

La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, October 13, 2024, p. 3

In a further step in the implementation of the judicial reform, the Senate defined yesterday that 850 positions of judges and magistrates will be renewed in the extraordinary election of June 2025; Of these, 711 were defined yesterday through a draw carried out in transparent ballot boxes in the plenary hall of that Chamber.

The remaining 139 are vacant places that, in accordance with the second transitional article of that reform, go directly to that election next year, the first of two that will be carried out to renew in a phased manner all the heads of courts of district and circuit courts.

Implicitly, after the insaculation process, the other half of the total number of seats, which are more than 1,600, will be elected in the June 2027 elections.

In this last case, 15 pregnant or lactating judges will be placed, since although the positions of eight of them came out in the raffle to be voted on in 2025, the plenary session agreed that they be renewed until the second electoral process, which was applauded by Malú Micher and other senators.

Yesterday’s session of that Chamber of Congress seemed more like a National Lottery draw with two ballot boxes placed in the gallery of the plenary hall, in which the approval of new laws was not sung, but rather the fate of judges and magistrates.

This was recognized by the president of the Senate, Gerardo Fernández Noroña, when responding to questions from senators: We are all learning, from here to the National Lottery!

The selection was through holy hand of legislators from the 4T, such as Verónica Camino Farjat, from Morena, who took out the numbered spheres that defined which judges will be able to stay for three years and who will have to run, if they wish, on the first Sunday of June 2025 or lose their position definitively.

After 9:30 a.m., the session began in a rush – since the ballot boxes were placed yesterday – and confusion among legislators due to the high number of places that would go to the polls. The presence of the PRI senators allowed there to be quorumsince at the beginning 66 were called, although later more from Morena, PT and PVEM arrived, until reaching 85.

Fernández Noroña had to formulate a long explanation of how the process would be carried out and repeated it three times so that it was clear, given its complexity. The previous agreement of that Chamber to carry out the insaculation was modified, in order to strictly follow what was established in the second transitional period of the constitutional reform of the Judiciary.

Among the senators who raised doubts about the number of charges to be investigated was Lucía Trasviña.

Fernández Noroña acknowledged that the list that the Federal Judiciary Council (CJF) sent them last Thursday night made it possible to expedite the inacculation, because it included all the charges, with a consecutive number assigned by the council itself and the classification. by circuits.

It was then decided that from the CJF list the odd numbers of courts and tribunals that came out of the raffle would go to the 2025 election and the even numbers to the 2027 election. There was no major problem, except for some error when reading the assignment, which immediately was corrected.

Based on this information from the body headed by the president of the Supreme Court, Norma Piña, there are a total of 772 positions for district judges and 927 for circuit magistrates, but 25 in the case of the former and 114 in the case of circuit magistrates are vacant. the seconds.

Hence, 350 positions for magistrates and 361 for judges were drawn, a total of 711, while the senators from all the political forces attending – the PAN and MC groups did not attend – were leaving the premises, while the drawing was taking place.

The first that was sung was that of the seventeenth collegiate court in administrative matters of the first circuit of the city, and thus, five hours later, the second district court in the state of Colima, with the plenary session almost empty.

At the proposal of the Morenoist senator Óscar Cantón Zetina, an appeal was made to the Council of the Federal Judiciary, so that as of yesterday no changes of assignment of the current heads of courts and tribunals will proceed, since they will be pending.

In the end, Fernández Noroña commented that the next step is to issue, next Tuesday, the call for that historical election of judges, magistrates and ministers. We began an electoral process that does not exist in any other nation in the world, aimed at all people judging by universal, secret and direct voting..

They decline to participate

According to that CJF list, 25 magistrates and four judges declined to participate in the election on June 1, 2015, so after that date they will be outside the Judiciary.