México’s defeat. America’s only reliable ally

In the mid-1980s, Italy put about 500 mobsters on trial. This macro trial cost the lives of courtiers, prosecutors and police. Since then we have understood and persecuted criminal organizations as non-individual collective criminal bodies. This diminished the power of the mafia in Italy, without it enjoying its former collusion and political protection.

México has the legal capacity to implement not one, but all the maxi-processes necessary to subdue the cartels operating in our territory. It would be an action with permanent effects against catches of kingpins that ad perpetuam will be replaced by others.

Why does México have high technical legal capacity to prosecute drug trafficking? Because it has the Federal Judiciary (PJF), which has been cultivating specialized judicial personnel for 30 years, through rigorous opposition examinations, well paid, years of staggered experience. Not surprisingly, the Mexican State exclusively deposits the application of the Law against Organized Crime. We are custodians of all human rights, against government acts and omissions. Last instance in any trial of any matter and only entity to resolve collective actions.

In México we call federal judicial specialization a “judicial career”, which would be similar to a university degree. I clarify that the judicial career is not without problems. For instance, judicial working conditions led to nepotism. Schedule, strenuous days, led to marriages between officials. The type of liability led to the entry of “recommended family members”; high job benefits were reduced to some judges to employ family members.

This practice did not weaken the capacity and quality of work. As nepotism grew, the judicial government imposed admissions exams. That’s why quality standards were never compromised.

For the Anglo-American system, all this will be strange. Its judicial system operates with few officials, its judiciary does not produce school or judicial career. The collegiation of lawyers makes the judicial and advocacy function natural, common and horizontal. We, of Roman tradition, document trials extensively, require armies of officials. Our trial lawyers lack control of their bars, there is no uniform legal community between judges and trial lawyers.

Another difference is understanding the law. In the United States, law is action, concrete demand, its judiciary leads to a kind of factual, pragmatic and rigorous judicial independence (impartiality). For México, law is first a concept, formal congruence with written law, only then concrete guardianship. Judicial Independence in México is less factual and more rigorous, it depends on the impartiality of the judge that his judgment approves the legal canon, otherwise it must be corrected. That’s why México has high recursion in its trials, the United States does not.

Perhaps only in matters of federal justice, the United States and México have one thing in common: difficulty corrupting federal judges and magistrates. In Mexico this is explained without bars associations that control and standardize the profession, but through high salaries and the prestige of the judicial career.

After this explanation, surely there´s a concern: If the PJF in México is so good, why is there no history of maxi-prosecutions against cartels? Simple: The federal prosecutor’s office (attorney general office) does not file or bring trials of this nature. For corruption, incapacity, call it what you want. Two facts cooperate:

1. The Attorney Offices lack consolidated and professional bureaucracies, and 2. In reality the Attorney Offices are not independent of the Executive.

Another explanation. As was the case in Italy, the current Executive minimizes everything. He has denied countless times that México is unsafe, violent or a fentanyl producer. Under the guise of national sovereignty, it hampered cooperation between prosecutors, security entities and the military with US security agencies.

A recent example: Mayo Zambada, one of the world’s most wanted drug trafficker for decades, had criminal proceedings (six) and arrest warrants issued by the PJF (four) in México since the last century.

When he was captured, México’s government reacted first by clarifying that his government did not capture him, then, when questioned about the oblivion of arrest warrants, he said that his government does not want violence, prefers to address the causes of drug trafficking. That is, politics prevails over law; but more disconcerting is that he is now concerned about how the Mexican kingpin was deceived, taken and captured on American soil.

The United States of America will unknowingly suffer a major defeat in its only reliable ally against drugs. The PJF in México will be dismantled, submitted to the Executive and its parliament. Has been ignored career and judicial independence. It is in the process of reforming the Constitution to dismiss the entire Mexican Court, 1,700 federal judges and take political control of the judicial government. We will be replaced by a selection of the Executive and its parliament, and then by direct popular vote elect the federal judges.

Forums, meetings, dialogues were simulated. They gloomily ignored, mocked court ministers, judges, magistrates, expert analysts, journalists. We are contemplating the destruction of the PJF before the triumphant of raw political power.

The hegemonic party (MORENA) has not been imported into the absence of documented evidence of corruption in the PJF, no more than 0.07% of cases. It has been inconsequential that the judicial criteria of Human Rights in México will reach levels of any International High Court, which today are the heritage of Mexicans rights and standards that only the most advanced nations have. History, doctrine, and continental legal (civil law), democratic, and republican tradition are uniform in showing that any interference of politics in the Judiciary annuls the division of powers, transforms the Republic into tyranny, autocracy.

MORENA argues to obey the people’s mandate to take political control of the judiciary. Under this insane framework they have allowed themselves to concentrate all power.

I am writing these lines in this context, to inform you that not only México will lose its only reliable institution, but you will lose the only reliable and capable ally that could change the course of the tragedy shared by the United States and México.

(*) Leonardo González Martínez, Federal Circuit Magistrate in México.

The texts published in this section are the authors’ sole responsibility, and La Opinión assumes no responsibility for them.

Sigue leyendo:
• AMLO enviará carta a Joe Biden para denunciar injerencia de EE.UU. en México
• AMLO dice que México no detendrá a Vladimir Putin si acude a la investidura de Claudia Sheinbaum
• Estados Unidos defiende cooperación con México contra cárteles tras detención de “El Mayo” Zambada