Paul Gillingham: evaluation

Transcript context

…Now, the recent judicial reforms, which spilled over into the more recent administration, a lot of outsiders said, “That’s taking away the independence of the Mexican judiciary.” Do you agree, or how bad is it, or does it not matter much? What’s your sense? I think it matters greatly. I always found it strange, the idea of electing any judicial official. When I moved to the US, I thought, “Hold on, you do what? ” The idea of electing judges is a really poor idea, I think, in Mexico because of the interest of local drug-trading organizations in having sympathetic judges. It’s a lot lower cost to get them elected than to threaten them. Judges are people who it’s generally a bad idea to kill. The state doesn’t like it. It happens really regularly, but still quite a high-risk strategy as opposed to just having them in your pocket. While electoral turnout across Mexico is admirably high and remarkable, judicial elections have just been the glaring exception to that. I think turnout was 13 percent. I think that in itself is a condemnation of the whole project. While recognizing longstanding flaws in the Mexican judicial system, this is, I think, a disastrous reform. Why did they do it then?…

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