Will directly electing judges help Mexico fight corruption in its justice system?

Mexico’s outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has used his party's overwhelming democratic mandate to pass a series of reforms that will make the country the first in the world to elect almost all of its judges by popular vote. It’s a reform that the left-wing leader has championed as a crucial step to curtail the widespread corruption in Mexico’s judiciary – but some are worried it may leave the newly elected judges open to pressure from the country's powerful drug cartels, or even usher in a return to de facto one-party rule.

Mexico is about to become the first country in the world where people will have the power to elect almost every judge in the country, from local magistrates to the justices of the Supreme Court. The sweeping judicial reform narrowly passed through Mexico’s upper house on Wednesday morning after protesters stormed the Senate in a desperate effort to stop lawmakers voting, forcing them to continue the count in a separate building.

The outcome of the vote was not a given. Although the ruling party held the two-thirds supermajority necessary to pass the reform package in the lower-house, they were one vote short in the Senate. A last-minute defection from the conservative opposition finally gave them the numbers they needed – the proposal passed just after midnight.

"Judges, with honourable exceptions ... are at the service of a predatory minority that has dedicated itself to plundering the country," he said.

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