César Arellano García
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, January 20, 2025, p. 11
The Judicial Branch of the Federation (PJF) faces an excessive workload due to the lack of personnel that has been going on for years, which worsened after the work stoppage of some employees last year.
Sectional representatives of the Union of Workers of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (STPJF) interviewed by this means indicated that this circumstance generates delays in the resolution of cases, while increasing stress and fatigue among employees and affecting their quality of life.
Nidia Morales is a representative of section 46 of Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, which includes two mixed district courts with 44 people who handle all types of protections. “Around 300 files are dispatched, which causes some people to get sick, but licenses are not covered.
When we say that we want justice for the workers we are referring to the mayor; to the actuary; to the judicial officer, the administrative officer and the party officer, as well as the court clerk. In Obregón a mixed district court is urgently needed. This city is forgotten due to the violence that exists in the entity.
Early morning notifications
Even, he said, there are actuaries who at midnight deliver notifications to relatives of missing persons, who promote protection to prevent victims from being made invisible in the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons. They go and notify at any time of the day, night or early morning, putting their integrity at risk.
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Sergio Jesús Pinzón, union representative in Campeche, supported his colleague. He said that in the courts where he works there are excessive hours of work without extra pay, and they do not provide transportation to actuaries who on many occasions provide notifications issued by the judge in the early hours of the morning. The majority of actuaries are women who run a risk by going out to report at these hours. The Council does nothing about it
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Data from the Federal Judiciary Council indicate that in 2024, federal courts and tribunals in the country handled, on average, 1,767,605 cases on business days, although they have a backlog of 532,342 files. Last December there was an initial existence of 522,956, then 129,888 entered and only 120,502 left.
During the stoppage of activities in the Judicial Branch of the Federation, from August 19 to November 11, the entry and exit of files was drastically reduced. In August, 16,400 were served, in September 2,655; in October 25 thousand and in November 96 thousand 388 files.
The Council is the body of the Judiciary in charge of the administration, surveillance, discipline and judicial career of the federal justice administration bodies. It has a staff of 38,479 workers in 937 jurisdictional bodies (courts and tribunals) specialized in civil, administrative, labor and criminal matters, among others. Of them, 24,948 are for jurisdictional support, 4,069 are administrative, 7,919 are secretaries and 1,543 are judges and magistrates.
It also has 922 administrative areas, 471 auxiliary bodies and 451 administrative units, with a workforce of 10,881 employees, of which 10,730 are administrative, six directors and 145 secretaries.
“We have been trying for more than 10 years to have a balance in the workloads; regularly, the district courts are where work is most saturated due to the type of work day that the workers work. For 10 years we have been challenging for new courts to be opened throughout the Republic and now, with the budget cut and also with the cut in labor benefits, the workloads are going to worsen – they will be more excessive – the workers will be more subjected to overtime, and one of the things that we have demanded for a long time is that they do not pay overtime,” claimed Juan Carlos Gil González, from section 42 of the STPJF, in Mexicali, Baja California.
