With accusations that range from links with drug trafficking to the proximity with religious sects such as the light of the world, the historical judicial election that will be held on Sunday, June 1 in Mexico has been overshadowed by citizen complaints that alert the risks for the justice system.
While the electoral authorities deal with the task of organizing unprecedented elections in which – only at the federal level – 881 charges of almost 3,500 applicants will be chosen, in the citizens networks dedicated to monitoring and documenting dozens of dangerous candidacies that still appear on the ballots have arisen.
Although the 2024 judicial reform was presented by President Claudia Sheinbaum as a promise of greater transparency and accountability in justice, activists have warned of failures that have allowed the infiltration of “high -risk profiles.”
To demonstrate it, a network of more than 1,400 citizen vigilantes emerged, which in two months of the campaign identified at least 40 candidates with some degree of risk, and in 24 cases they presented formal evidence before the National Electoral Institute (INE), an authority that declared itself unable to withdraw them, Miguel Meza recapitulated, of the Civil Organization Defensorxs.
For Meza, one of the “worst cases” is that of Francisco Herrera Franco, candidate for criminal judge in Michoacán, where he was nicknamed “The Prosecutor of Terror” during his management (2020-2022), and is indicated by alleged criminal pacts and his involvement in the murder of journalists Roberto Toledo and Armando Linares.
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Another “alarming” profile, according to the lawyer, is that of Leopoldo Javier Chávez, aspiring federal judge in Durango, who was almost six years in the United States for methamphetamine traffic.
“It is a case that shows the legal gaps of this reform,” Meza warned, pointing out that among the requirements to run only a record of non -criminal record in Mexico is required, without considering sentences abroad.
It is also a requirement to enjoy “good reputation”, a criterion that, according to Meza, violates several candidates, such as the exabogada of drug trafficker Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, Silvia Delgado, who aspires to a penalty judge in Chihuahua, as well as a twenty candidates throughout the country linked to the church of the world of the world.
The power of “blessings”
Shaim Guzmán, victim of the world’s light sect, joined the citizen network after detecting the candidacy of Job Daniel Wong, a minister of cult that aspires to magistrate in Jalisco.
Although the INE rejected it from the contest for not being officially registered as “Minister of Cult”, Guzmán warned that not even the church leader, Naasón Joaquín García, -today imprisoned in the United States for child sexual abuse -was once registered as such.
However, the greatest risk that Guzman warns of these candidates is their infiltration in the justice system to silence the complaints and open judicial folders in Mexico against Naasón, in exchange for “blessings.”
“That is more dangerous than a lawyer who defends a drug trafficker (…) because here your payment is eternal life,” he warned.
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He also pointed out that in Jalisco, this church managed to place at least one candidate in each judicial specialty, such as Madián Sinai Menchaca, daughter of Bishop Nicolás Menchaca, who has publicly defended Nassón and is highly probable that he is elected by gender parity, being of the only women who compete for administrative judge.
The 3,422 candidates for judges, magistrates and ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) concluded on Wednesday the campaign, in the prelude to the unprecedented election of Sunday, when almost 100 million Mexicans will choose 881 positions of the Judiciary.
With EFE information
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