Ernesto Zedillo, President of Mexico (1994–2000), opens the IBA Annual Conference 2024 in Mexico City with an address to all delegates highlighting the implications of the changes of the Constitutional Reform and to the independence of judges.

I begin by confessing that I come to this forum of ‘believers in rules’ to break a rule, even if it is one of my own creation and self-imposition. That rule – which I have not broken in almost a quarter of a century – is to strictly leave to others the task of making comments, analysis and scrutiny of the events, decisions and consequences of my time as President of the Republic, together with my firm will to abstain from publicly commenting on the political events in my country.

I think that suspending, as an exception, my self-censorship rule in this forum is justified for a very sad reason: our federal congress has just approved – and has been ratified by a majority of state legislatures – a set of constitutional reforms that will destroy the judicial branch and, with it, bury Mexican democracy and what remains of its fragile rule of law.

In arguing in favour of this ongoing atrocity, its perpetrators have made false and perverse reference to the motivation, content and results of the reform I undertook in 1994.

My first major decision as President was an initiative to reform the country's Constitution to strengthen the independence and capabilities of the Mexican judiciary. 

That reform – along with others that I promoted and were achieved – arose from my conviction that Mexico's difficulty in satisfying the unmet demands of our people for economic, social and political progress was fundamentally rooted in our historic failure to build a true democracy.
 
Since the end of the war phase of the Mexican Revolution in the second decade of the 20th century, our country was one in which, unlike many others in Latin America and the world, the executive and legislative powers were periodically renewed through regular [and] multiparty, albeit limited, elections. The Constitution stipulated democracy as our political regime. However, the formal and informal rules were such that, for a long time, political parties other than my own, in fact, had no chance of winning those periodic elections. At the national and local levels, governments, both in the executive and legislative branches, from one and the same party repeatedly prevailed – albeit with a golden rule of non-reelection – and those same governments were responsible for organising and validating the elections.

Undoubtedly, political stability under one-party rule produced significant economic and social progress for several decades and allowed for the creation of important and useful institutions. But it also came at a high cost: an unchecked, unbalanced and arbitrary exercise of power. The actions of the executive were not monitored or counterbalanced by Congress; the latter’s role was assumed to be to unconditionally support the executive. That support was good for certain purposes. However, during times of greatest challenge it also allowed for the abusive use of authority, resulting in the formulation of misguided policies that led to severe economic crises and political repression.

In short, the political system of my country, despite the provisions of the 1917 Constitution, for a long time did not meet the essential requirements of a full and functional democracy.

Mexico did not have a true democracy because the government had the option to exercise power in an arbitrary and erroneous manner with total legal and political impunity, due to the absence of adequate checks and balances in Congress and the judiciary.

It was not a true democracy because, by action and omission, the rule of law deliberately remained weak, which not only generated insecurity among citizens and violations of their fundamental rights, but also normalised corruption. Democracy and justice are mutually dependent: one cannot exist without the other.

Of course, for justice to be a reality, several key conditions must be met, such as adequate laws, their impartial application, and universal and equal access to the judicial system. These conditions are not possible without a professional, impartial and independent judiciary, headed by a Supreme Court with those same attributes and with the additional power to declare laws and government actions unconstitutional when they are so.

The 1917 Constitution advocated the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, but a succession of reforms soon ignored that ideal. Ultimately, these reforms generally sought to expand the President of the Republic’s ability to influence, and even control, the Supreme Court of Justice, allowing [the] government to carry out its actions unhindered by an independent judiciary.

There were multiple means of control by the executive over the judiciary, from the appointment of ministers to the control of their budget.
 
For most of the 20th century, the judiciary was simply a part of Mexico’s political system, based on one-party dominance, essentially serving the leadership in power.

The Court frequently failed to protect individual rights, approved government policies and actions that lacked constitutional basis, and limited citizens’ access to justice.

Since my nomination as a candidate for the presidency, throughout my electoral campaign and upon taking office as president, I committed myself to undertaking the reforms necessary to make Mexico a true democracy with its indispensable companion: an independent judiciary.

Five days after taking office, I sent a constitutional reform initiative to Congress. I explained to the public the importance of the proposed reform, but what was crucial was to personally go to both houses of Congress to respectfully encourage legislators from all parties to seriously consider the initiative, as well as to begin working together toward a significant electoral reform.

In my meetings with legislators, the premise was always dialogue with all parties, never imposition. With modifications introduced by Congress itself in the exercise of its powers, the 1994 reform meant a break with Mexico’s semi-authoritarian past, which was facilitated by a Court essentially subordinate to the president. Correcting this anti-democratic anomaly was [the] main objective of said reform.

The reform significantly and sensibly strengthened the judicial control and constitutional powers of the Court. It acquired a much stronger power to decide on the constitutionality of acts of authority and laws and obtained the ability to repeal all or part of the law or act under its control. It was endowed with the power to decide on legal controversies between the federal and state governments, between state governments and municipalities, and between different municipalities. It was given the power to decide on cases of unconstitutionality brought by only one-third of either chamber of the Federal Congress against federal laws or resolutions, and by only one-third of the state legislatures against their own state laws or resolutions. The reform not only strengthened federalism but also its ability to protect the rights of political minorities.

The reform created the Judicial Council, which was charged with functions such as managing the judicial budget, appointing lower courts, determining rigorous criteria of merit and performance, and establishing oversight mechanisms. As a result, requirements for raising the professional standards of members of the judiciary were determined and traditional laxity in politically motivated appointments and retirements was curbed.

Ladies and gentlemen: today, we Mexicans commemorate the beginning of the struggle for independence. When this was achieved, we Mexicans finally had the opportunity to become a nation of free men and women, a sovereign nation that would seek the progress and justice dreamed of by the fathers of our country, [Miguel] Hidalgo and [José María] Morelos. The realisation of their dream was frustrated by despots and criminal bosses who did not love Mexico; they only wanted power [for] themselves. The anti-patriots of that time, with their evil, transformed our splendid and promising independence into misery for the people, and into the loss of sovereignty and a large part of our territory for the nation.

Many years of fratricidal struggles had to pass, impoverishing Mexico, before our liberal heroes could defeat the reactionaries and carry out the reform that was written into the Constitution of 1857 and that gave us the foundations to build a free and democratic republic. In addition, the liberals, with the great President [Benito] Juárez at the head, defeated a foreign invasion that, in complicity with bad Mexicans, wanted to impose a foreign prince as ruler.

Unfortunately, the ambition for [the] power of a president betrayed the principles of the 1857 Constitution and transformed the reform into a long dictatorship. In 1910, the dictatorship was defeated by Francisco I Madero, who gave democracy back to Mexico. However, the anti-patriots were quick to conspire and assassinate him. They transformed Madero's democracy into a criminal dictatorship.

That dictatorship was defeated by the Mexican Revolution, which, having yielded fruits of economic and social progress without precedent in our history, also delayed too much in fulfilling Madero's ideal of democracy with which the Revolution had been born. Thanks to Mexicans of several generations, at the end of the 20th century, we were finally able to say with pride that we already belonged to a nation with true democracy. Now, the new anti-patriots want to transform our democracy into another tyranny.

For sure, we know why they are calling themselves the fourth transformation. They are not talking about the independence, the reform and the Revolution. They are referring to the felonies that transformed those extraordinary and promising episodes of our history into a tragedy for the nation. This is exactly what the fourth transformation seeks: to transform our democracy into tyranny.

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This is an abridged version of Ernesto Zedillo’s speech at the IBA Annual Conference in September 2024 in Mexico City. The filmed speech can be viewed in full here.