Zero sum in the SCJN

Before her colleagues went to the ballot box, the magistrate asked for the floor to recommend her name and career. The day before, information had circulated about a complaint against her. “It has no relationship with a corruption case,” refuted Luz María Anaya Domínguez, who competed for the presidency of the Federal Court of Administrative Justice.

The plenary session of that court began in 2023 with the election of the replacement for Rafael Anzures, who concluded his three-year term as president of the Court. And as it happened in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, the media pressures affected the main candidates and the calculations of the experts failed resoundingly.

In the Court, Anaya Domínguez was the first applicant to present her job proposal, followed by judges Javier Olivas Ugalde and Guillermo Valls, winner of the vote in the first round, despite various indications, due to his alleged closeness to the former PAN senator. Roberto Gil Zuarth and recent investigations by the FIU.

The last time that a magistrate presided over the General Plenary of the Federal Court was 18 years ago, but nine of the 15 magistrates with the right to vote —including the two members of the third section— gave their support to the Chiapas magistrate, while the other two candidates distributed the rest, three each.

“I am an institutional woman, of principles and values, who will always put the interests of the Court before my own. The first thing is the institution”, reiterated the magistrate Anaya Domínguez.

In the Supreme Court, the eleven members of the full ministers also showed signs of cohesion and institutional discipline in the election of their new president. Before the vote, Yasmín Esquivel Mossa requested the floor to defend her candidacy and again offer her arguments, before the accusation of having plagiarized her bachelor’s thesis.

“From the powers that be, there is a manipulation of information,” he insisted, “there are those who for economic, corporate or political reasons want to weaken this Court. I did not lend myself nor will I lend myself to it ”.

The media scandal guaranteed that the election in the SCJN would not be resolved in the first round. And also, the presidential veto to the applications of Javier Lainez Positek and Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena.

History was made in the SCJN. A woman will preside over the plenary session of ministers for the first time. After the beating, the obradorista wing in the Judiciary is left at a disadvantage. The majority in both jurisdictional instances rejected the candidates promoted from the National Palace. Natalia Téllez, in the TFJA, and Jasmín Esquivel in the SCJN. “The judiciary is kidnapped,” summed up the federal Executive yesterday in his morning conference. Its “deep renovation”, he lamented, will be the task of the next government.