Mexico freezes relations with US, Canadian embassies over judicial reform row – National
THE Mexican Government suspended its relations with the WE And canadian The country’s embassies have closed, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday, after their ambassadors criticized a judicial reform bill he supports.
“There is a pause,” Lopez Obrador said at a news conference, specifying that the freeze concerned embassies and not countries.
Mexico’s president wants to reform the election of judges, including those of the Supreme Court, by universal suffrage. A committee of the lower house of Mexico’s Congress approved the proposal Monday night, paving the way for its adoption by the new Congress, which will take office in September.
Supporters of the reform say it will strengthen democracy and help fix a system they say is failing the public, while critics say it will skew power in favor of the executive, end judges’ careers and make courts more vulnerable to criminal influence.
U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar last week called the reform “a major risk to the functioning of Mexican democracy” and warned of a potential risk to U.S.-Mexico trade relations.
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The United States and Mexico are each other’s largest trading partners.
Canadian Ambassador to Mexico Graeme Clark also warned of investment concerns.
Later Tuesday, after Lopez Obrador’s comments, Salazar released a diplomatic note from the embassy, dated August 23.
“The United States supports the concept of judicial reform in Mexico, but we are deeply concerned that popular election of judges would not solve the problem of judicial corruption or strengthen the judicial power of the Mexican government,” the note reads.
The Canadian Embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lopez Obrador had criticized what he called Salazar’s interference in domestic politics.
“How are we going to allow the ambassador to give his opinion, to say that what we are doing is wrong?” Lopez Obrador added. “We are not going to tell him to leave the country. But let him read our Constitution, yes, we will tell him.”
Salazar had previously said he was open to talks with Mexican government leaders to discuss different justice models.
Lopez Obrador said the “pause” would continue until “the embassies have confirmation that they will respect Mexico’s independence.”
The US diplomatic note states that the country has “the greatest respect for Mexico’s sovereignty.”
The Mexican peso MXN= was down 1.65% in early afternoon trading.
The percentage has fallen sharply since the June elections, in which Lopez Obrador’s preferred successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won the presidency and her Morena party and its allies won a supermajority in the lower house and nearly a supermajority in the Senate.
A two-thirds majority vote is required to amend the Constitution, which judicial reform should do.
–Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez, Raul Cortes and Kylie Madry; editing by Sarah Morland and Paul Simao
