Mexico - January 2023

On 2 January the Mexican Supreme Court (SCJN) elected Norma Lucia Piña Hernández as the first woman to serve as chief justice in the court’s history. Justices voted by six votes to five to elect Piña Hernández to lead the nation’s highest judicial body. In her post-election speech, Piña highlighted the importance of having a woman preside over the SCJN, stating a previously impenetrable glass ceiling has been broken and that she would represent all women in the role. She pledged to work towards “a fairer, more egalitarian society, without violence for women”.

Sources: Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, Jurist, Forbes, Reuters

Concerns about militarisation and the government’s reliance on the military to carry out civilian duties increased after Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum’s (a close ally of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador) announcement on 12 January to deploy over 6,000 members of the National Guard (GN) to metro stations. Her announcement was followed by the government’s appointment of former army general and commander of the GN, Luis Rodríguez Bucio, as the new deputy public security minister.

In response to a challenge by the National Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Court ruled on 24 January that, while carrying out public security functions, the military does not need to report arrests it makes to the police, but must record them directly in a national detention registry.  

The military’s growing influence occurs as the government significantly expands the budget of the armed forces. Amnesty International stated that the deployment of GN to metro stations indicated the “normalisation of militarisation in Mexico”. Human Rights Watch warned that the federal government’s militarised security policy risks facilitating abuses by security forces while failing to reduce violent crime.

Sources: El Universal, Human Rights Watch, Reuters, Mexico News Daily, Expansión Política

Mexican armed forces captured Ovidio Guzman, a prominent leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, in an operation that resulted in 29 deaths, of which ten were military personnel. Further turmoil ensued as cartel members besieged parts of Sinaloa in attempts to prevent Guzmán’s transfer to Mexico City. This followed a failed attempt to arrest him in 2019 in a similar episode that saw military forces capture and then release Guzmán after cartel members violently retaliated.

Amnesty International and Seguridad Sin Guerra collective stated the violence in Sinaloa was indicative of Mexico’s public security crisis and the ineffectiveness of a strategy that relies on the military participating in public security tasks to resolve the problem of violent crime.

Sources: Reuters, British Broadcasting Corporation, El Pais