Gustavo Castillo and Fabiola Martínez
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, January 18, 2026, p. 6
The plenary session of the Judicial Administration Body (OAJ) unanimously approved the 2026 budget discipline agreement, which considers harsh austerity measures for all bodies of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (PJF) – including the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation –, among them the 10 percent reduction of the total annual cost of the “organic structures”, which must be met no later than the closing of this month.
The document – a copy of which you have The Day and that has not been published either on the OAJ website or in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF)–, was approved on December 11, 2025 and is already generating uncertainty among thousands of officials with temporary and permanent positions, as well as hundreds of fee-based employees, since positions have been cancelled.
The regulations indicate that the contracting of professional services (fees) is conditional on agreements of three months and a maximum of six months during the fiscal year. Also, the resources for the dining room service in all facilities and the expenses allocated to travel expenses and commissions will decrease by 50 percent, in relation to the expenditure incurred in 2025.
César Mauricio López Ramírez, executive secretary of the OAJ plenary session, certified the agreement when Judge Lorena Josefina Pérez Romero had not yet resigned, about whom the OAJ has not issued any information, despite the fact that at the beginning of this month dozens of officials who worked with her were required to resign and the offices where they worked were sealed.
The document, signed by López Ramírez and the president of the OAJ, Néstor Vargas Solano, provides that no later than the last business day of February it must publish “its guidelines and the amount corresponding to the savings goal.”
The reduction of staff is established by 10 percent of their total annual cost, in addition to “reducing to a minimum the resources planned for the creation of positions during fiscal year 2026”, for which each entity must have authorization from the Administration Commission and the plenary session of the OAJ.
In the same way, the “optimization of places” is defined and that the needs must be “covered by promoting the transfer” of vacancies, and in any case applying “compensated movements of cancellation/creation of places.”
The rule, which will come into force the day after its publication in the DOFpoints out that “when a position becomes vacant in permanent commissions, general secretaries, executive secretaries, administrative areas, surveillance, auxiliary and support bodies, it will be mandatory that it remain vacant for at least 30 calendar days,” and that positions that are vacant for more than four months will be made available to the OAJ.
Professional services
Professional services may only be contracted when they cover “extraordinary needs” and are not “contained in any of the position profiles of the authorized positions” and when they meet “temporary needs” and provide “specialized services in matters other than jurisdictional matters.”
The contracts can be signed as long as a positive human resources opinion is issued from each institution, and if approved “consecutive professional service contracts cannot be entered into for the same service provider.” If this is done, at least 30 days must elapse between each contract “not exceeding, in the same fiscal year, the total period of six months considering all the instruments entered into with the same service provider.”
