The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, accused the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation on Tuesday of “protecting corruption” and “the minority. “
The president criticized the court ministers for invalidating on Wednesday the reform that his government promoted to establish mandatory preventive detention, that is, automatic, for crimes related to tax fraud, smuggling, and sale of invoices.
“It goes along the lines of continuing to protect corruption and to continue supporting minorities,” declared the president at his morning press conference.
His criticism comes a day after the SCJN agreed to the unconstitutionality action filed by the opposition in the Senate and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) against the 2019 reforms.
That year, the ruling party promoted reforms to the National Code of Criminal Procedures and the National Security Law to punish crimes that have to do with invoice smuggling and tax fraud as organized crime.
The president considered that the Supreme Court invalidated the preventive detention because “they are white-collar criminals” and “the ‘fifís’ cannot go to jail, “ as arrogant upper-class people are mockingly called in Mexico.
“I think it is to continue protecting minorities and punishing only those who do not have handles, influence, or do not have with what to buy their innocence, it seems to me that they did not act well,” argued the president.
The president regretted that it is necessary for the other powers to punish “equally all those who commit an offense” and “that Justice is not at the service of money, of the powerful.”
Even so, he promised to respect the ruling.
“We are going to respect the decision of the Court because we want to be in a true state of law,” he said.
López Obrador even indicated that the decision shows that “it is very clear that the ministers of the Court act with absolute freedom”, something that did not happen in other governments.
“In our country, there is division and independence in the powers, as it did not happen before, in decades. Before the power of the powers was the Executive Power. That is the first lesson for those who do not believe in transformation, “ he said.
The Court’s debate showed divisions with a vote of eight in favor of disability and three against, including those of Ministers Margarita Ríos-Farjat and Yasmín Esquivel, both proposed by López Obrador.
The president of the SCJN, Arturo Zaldívar, strongly opposed the government’s reforms, considering preventive detention “contrary to the principle of presumption of innocence.”
Despite this, López Obrador backed Zaldívar, whom he considers the ideal minister to carry out the “transformation” of the Judiciary.