Mexico Pauses Ties With U.S. Embassy Amid Clash Over Judicial Overhaul

MEXICO CITY — For months, tensions have been building in Mexico over the president’s sweeping plans to overhaul the judiciary, straining diplomatic ties with the United States and shaking the country’s political system.

This week, those tensions exploded into the open.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico said Tuesday that his government was “pausing” relations with the U.S. Embassy in response to criticism by the U.S. ambassador over the final crusade of his six-year presidential term.

“Hopefully there will be a statement from them that they are going to be respectful of the independence of Mexico,” López Obrador said of the United States during his daily news conference. “As long as that doesn’t happen and they continue with that policy, then there is a pause with the Embassy.”

“‘Pause’ means that we are going to take a break,” he added, saying it would also extend to the U.S. State Department. In the same breath, López Obrador also said overall U.S.-Mexico relations would not be affected, in a possible bid to ease concerns over the potential effect on trade.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico and the Mexican Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The president’s freezing of diplomatic relations with the United States comes after comments made last week by Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador, calling the proposed judicial changes “a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.” Salazar asserted that the measures could threaten Mexico’s trade relationship with the United States by corroding confidence in Mexico’s legal framework and emboldening drug cartels to “take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges.”

Mexico’s new Congress could start voting as early as next week on the changes proposed by López Obrador. If passed, they would shift the entire judiciary from an appointment system largely based on specialized training and qualifications to one where just about anyone with a law degree and a few years of experience could run in elections to become a judge.

The measure could potentially force more than 5,000 judges from their jobs, from the Supreme Court down to local district courts.

López Obrador says the overhaul is needed to prevent corruption and rulings allowing drug traffickers to go free.

But others, citing the president’s barrage of attacks on judges who have ruled against some of his plans, say the measures amount to a thinly veiled pretext for eroding judicial independence and enhancing the power of López Obrador’s nationalistic political movement.

“This president does not believe that judges have the legitimacy to challenge him,” said Ana Laura Magaloni, one of Mexico’s top legal scholars. “There’s never been a president this powerful in their last month in office,” she added, pointing to how the approval of López Obrador’s once-stalled designs for the judicial system are now suddenly within his grasp.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .