Two young UNAM students confronted Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, during a forum on judicial reform. They criticized Morena's new popular election model for judges, accusing it of undermining judicial independence. The speakers defended the reform, but no responses to the interventions were recorded.
The incident took place at the forum “Judicial Reform, Democracy and Citizenship”, organized by the Electoral Judicial School at the Faculty of Law of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Hugo Aguilar Ortiz and magistrate Felipe Fuentes Barrera defended the popular voting model for judges, magistrates, and ministers, promoted by Morena, arguing that it brings justice closer to the people.
One of the young people, Jorge, a seventh-semester Law student at UNAM, questioned the use of “acordeones”—guides with candidate names—distributed by the ruling party, suggesting they evidence political ties to access judicial positions. “Doesn't it seem risky to you the message given to new generations of jurists given the completely reliable evidence that the acordeones were deliberately distributed by the ruling party? (...) Doesn't it seem to you a complete madness the message projected by this new project that you hold for new generations of jurists? The message would be to bow down to a factual power, in addition to political, to reach an elective position”, said Jorge.
The second young person criticized the preparation of the elected officials, citing recordings showing lack of knowledge among judges and magistrates. He argued that this does not bring justice closer to the people and affects due process, questioning whether judicial independence has been altered by the acordeones and the supermajority granted to the ruling party in the Legislature. “In this Faculty we study law and you have come to bring a speech in which you talk to us about bringing justice closer to the people, but bringing justice closer to the people means that all the collegiate circuit courts, the appellate collegiates, the district courts have competent people and in the last days we have all seen how this has not happened. We cannot accept as Faculty of Law that magistrate Fuentes Barrera comes to tell us that judicial independence was not altered, when there are the acordeones, when we all saw the supermajority that was given to the ruling party”, he stated.
The event's broadcast ended without documenting Aguilar Ortiz's responses. At the exit, the young people tried to question him again, but they were unable to exchange words.