“We will not abandon our principles” say judges during protest

Mexico City. Judges and magistrates of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (PJF) who declined to participate in the extraordinary process of judicial elections of 2025, indicated that with the reform of the judicial branch “they ask us in one way or another to sacrifice our autonomy, to limit our ability to judge freely and that we turn our backs on those who trust that in each court they will find impartial and honest justice.

The above during a mobilization carried out in the Senate of the Republic. María Emilia Molina, president of the Mexican Association of Women Judges, stated that justice in the country faces a critical moment, since its work is threatened by an amendment that seeks to undermine its principles.

The reform, he said, “places us at a crossroads where we are required to conform or give in to undue intervention in our decisions but today we decide clearly and firmly that we will not be complicit in the destruction of what it means to be a judge in a democratic country.

“We will not abandon our principles, because it would be abandoning people, rights and dignity, which is why we made the painful but painful decision to decline the position, it is not a surrender, but an act of dignity, a protest and a promise to the society. By declining we express our rejection of a reform that goes against justice itself, because there are no justiciables and no Thursdays and free female judges and no independent Courts.”

Meanwhile, the leader of the National Association of Circuit Magistrates and District Judges of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (JUFED), Juana Fuentes Velázquez, expressed: “in each of the letters of decline to participate, the courage to defend is reflected. to judicial independence. For this reason, judges and magistrates who are dissatisfied with said reform will continue from their trenches defending judicial independence and not submitting to any political power in power.

“Our work is dignified by expressing that we are not willing to make commitments to anything since our only mandate is and always will be the protection and protection of the human rights of all people and not of those who deceitfully hold political power.”

He asserted that this country loses great jurists and courts, but wins in every place where destiny places them, “because we will continue fighting so that each person in this country has their human rights respected and continues to be a seedbed of justice for all those who come after us.”

He stated: “it is better to decline than to accept impositions or commitments that sooner or later will have to be paid.”

He confirmed that of the 1,699 judges and magistrates that make up the PJF, 845 declined to participate in the election process by popular vote in June 2025, and the figure is made up of 342 judges and 503 magistrates.

Decline is an act of dignity, says minister

During her intervention Lilia Mónica López Benítez, who yesterday resigned from the position of magistrate and with her from her position as counselor of the Federal Judiciary (CJF), pointed out that many generations have contributed to the consolidation of a country of laws and institutions, in addition to who built a perfectible and unconditional democracy fighting against old authoritarianism.

“Today we warn of the contempt for the division of powers that risks the permanence of our democracy by putting biases before the delicate balance that must prevail between the sovereignty of the three powers. We must protect what has been gained, our freedom of thought and action, our right to dissent and our liberal and progressive lifestyle.

In that sense, he added that the judicial reform approved “cheatfully” will produce an action of facts and not of law, violating the public power of the State and all the people governed. “The workers of the Judicial Branch of the Federation have been guardians of the rule of law, we protect the state and all people without distinction from omnivorous power.”

“The approved reform hides the supplanting of the judicial order by parties that risk the solvency of the justice apparatus. While we are in this delicate function it is and will be to take care of the space of justice as an established and democratic power, avoiding another characterized by political factions and de facto powers , these principles cannot be subordinated to the electoral domain whose scope is political and not judicial.

Those dissatisfied with the judicial reform made a human chain at the entrance to the Senate and placed “a memorial” with the scales, a symbol of the balance of justice, which represents judges who decided not to participate in the 2025 election.