World
Mexico’s Obrador set to enact divisive judicial reforms: What happens next?
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is expected to enact controversial judicial reforms on Sunday, just ahead of Mexico’s Independence Day celebrations.
The reforms have sparked mixed reactions. Supporters argue they will make judges more accountable and praise the opportunity for the public to vote for those responsible for delivering justice. Critics contend this undermines the nation’s system of checks and balances by eroding the independence of the judiciary.
Here’s what we know as Mexico prepares to implement the reforms.
What is the main purpose of Mexico’s judicial reforms?
The law aims to transform the judiciary from an appointment-based system, primarily focused on their training and qualifications, to one where judges are elected by voters.
According to the government, the main goal of these reforms is to eliminate corruption from Mexico’s judiciary and ensure that it responds to the will of the people.
A bill to bring about the changes was approved by two-thirds of the upper house of parliament on Wednesday, following a contentious all-night debate. The reforms were approved by the lower house earlier this month.
All judges, both federal and state, from the lower rank to the Supreme Court, will be elected by citizens. There are nearly 7,000 positions in total.
The requirements to become a judge have also been reduced.
A law degree and five years of experience are sufficient for all judges except for those serving on the Supreme Court, where 10 years experience is required.
The reforms will also replace professional exams that are currently used to evaluate candidates. The new reform requires good grades and letters of recommendation.
The candidates must provide five letters from neighbours, colleagues or others vouching for their suitability for the role. The candidates are also required to submit an essay of three pages where they justify the reasons for their application.
The first election, covering about half of the judges, is expected to take place in June 2025. The rest should coincide with the regular elections of 2027. However, many details on how the voting will be organised are still unclear.
When these reforms take place, current judges – approximately 7,000 of them – will lose their positions but will then have the opportunity to run as candidates. However, many of the newly elected judges could step into specialised courtrooms they have never previously encountered, resulting in a potentially very challenging role.
How are judges currently selected in Mexico?
Judges currently advance to positions in higher courts through periodic reviews.
For the Supreme Court, the upper house of parliament selects its members from a shortlist proposed by the president.
“It is a very important reform,” Lopez Obrador said on Thursday. “It reaffirms that in Mexico there is a true democracy, where the people elect their representatives … not the elites … not the oligarchy. Everyone, every citizen,” he added.
The Supreme Court is the final arbiter on whether laws and the authorities adhere to the Constitution.
Is there a problem with justice in the country?
Experts recognise that the current judicial system has problems with corruption. Surveys also suggest that Mexicans have little to no confidence in the judicial system.
However, experts also concur that the problems are more pronounced at the local level rather than at the federal.
“There were no known major corruption cases [at the federal level],” Arturo Ramos Sobarzo, the director of the Center for Investigation and Legal Informatics at Mexico City’s Escuela Libre de Derecho, told Al Jazeera. “Of course, there were problems, and they were addressed. The criticism was mostly at the local level. There, the salaries were not as good, and there was a more critical view of the judiciary.”
According to Mexico Evalua, a think tank that evaluates government policies, Mexico’s justice system suffered from a very high level of impunity in 2022. The index used allows for identifying the system’s ability to provide an effective response to the cases it handles. A high level of impunity means a low rate of both appropriate convictions and cases being brought to court.
The crimes with the highest level of impunity, according to the report, were intentional homicides, femicides, sexual abuse, disappearances and kidnappings.
In the case of intentional homicide, the national average of impunity was 95.7 percent.
But, according to research, it is not just a question of cases before courts not yielding justice – allegedly due to corrupt judges. In Mexico, more than 90 percent of crimes are never brought to court.
One of the main challenges has to do with prosecutors’ willingness and capacity to investigate.
Nepotism is another significant issue and, according to some experts, a major concern within the judicial system. A recent report revealed that 37 percent of judiciary officials have at least one family member employed in the judiciary.
With these challenges, why are these reforms so controversial?
Experts say that the reform does not address the fundamental issues with the existing structure and prosecutors, who often lack adequate training and are frequently overwhelmed by their workload.
They also highlight that the new voting process for judges remains unclear and fraught with challenges.
Will voters take the time to research and review the resumes of the hundreds of relatively unknown candidates who could contest each position? Who will fund the candidates’ election campaigns? How many candidates will each ballot have on it? These are all unanswered questions.
“There’s sufficient people that consider that the judicial system doesn’t work well in Mexico,” Miguel Angel Toro Rios, the dean of the School of Social Sciences and Government at Tecnologico de Monterrey, a Monterrey-based university, told Al Jazeera.
He noted that the reforms do not address the main issues in the judicial system, prosecutors, the police or the National Guard.
Those problems can include corruption and, in many cases, chronic underfunding.
“If all of those things remain the same and the only thing you have is different judges… it’s not necessarily a given that they will be better equipped at dealing with these things. It seems like a lot of a hassle for a very limited policy gain,” Toros Rios explained.
Experts also fear this new process could be tainted by corruption.
“Citizens primarily turn to local state courts for issues like femicides or civil and criminal matters,” Adriana Delgado, the director of Azteca Opinion at TV Azteca, a Mexican multimedia conglomerate, told Al Jazeera.
“However, nothing gets resolved, and this judiciary reform has been marred by political rather than technical debates.”
“The reform only changes how judges and magistrates are elected by popular vote, which raises concerns about the potential infiltration of organised crime or the influence of political and economic interest groups on the selection process,” Delgado added.
Could voting affect the work of the judges?
According to lawyer Ramos Sobarzo, these reforms place the judicial system in a very challenging position.
For the Supreme Court of Justice, elected judges would serve terms of eight, 11, and 14 years, depending on the voting results. Those with the most votes will remain in office for a longer period.
“We are very concerned because it will undermine judicial independence in many ways as it will leave some or much of it to popularity,” he added.
“What is going to happen … in the seventh and eighth years, they will start thinking about how to get re-elected.”
“At that point, they might decide not based on the incentives of analysing the case files but on gaining popularity from a particular case. They will decide how it will be received by public opinion,” he explained.
The governing party argues that allowing voters to choose would make judges more accountable to the public and make it easier to punish problematic ones.
Besides the voting of the judges, what else are the reforms addressing?
The reforms will introduce “anonymous judges” to oversee organised crime cases, shielding their identities to protect them from reprisals, threats or pressure.
They will also reduce the size of the Supreme Court from 11 justices to nine.
They would also create a judicial disciplinary committee with the authority to address not only issues of judicial misconduct such as bribery, mishandling of evidence, or undue delays but also to investigate judges’ legal reasoning.
This aspect is also troubling to experts.
“We are very concerned about this change because it does not establish clear rules. It provides a very easy and free process for initiating proceedings against federal judges and magistrates, and we believe this will impact judicial independence. A judge might be ruling against a government appointment, and this court [the disciplinary committee] could intervene,” Sobarzo explained.
In the short term, what impact will this have on the judicial system in Mexico?
It is a big change in a short period of time.
In less than a year, on June 1, the election for half of the entire judiciary, including the complete Supreme Court, will take place.
Besides the challenge of organising such a big election, experts say that Mexicans might also feel an immediate impact on justice once this reform is in place.
“I do think they will feel the immediate impact, because this reform likely implies a salary reduction for members of the judiciary,” Sobarzo said.
The reform proposes that no minister, magistrate, or judge can earn a salary higher than that of the president.
According to reports, the typical salary for a member of the Supreme Court of Justice is above $10,000 a month. In 2018, Lopez Obrador said the president’s salary was about $5,613 monthly.
“We believe that, eventually, the best people will no longer be there,” Sobarzo explained.
But Toros Rios said that not much might change for everyday citizens and their legal disputes.
“It is not entirely obvious that everyday citizens will be affected,” Toros Rio said.
“Except if things benefit certain real powerful interest groups… they will probably be able to convince or fund the campaign of some of these judges, such that those judges will rule in favour of a lot of them,” he added.
Are there other concerns?
Amid the debates and controversy over the judicial reforms, the markets have fluctuated and some analysts have warned that uncertainty over the country’s legal system could spook potential investors.
The United States, Mexico’s largest trading partner, has also expressed concerns over the reforms, calling them “a major risk” to Mexico’s democracy. Canada, Mexico’s second-largest trading partner, has also said that investors fear the reform could lead to instability.
However, other experts believe the reforms will not affect Mexico’s potential as an investment destination.
“We’ve seen businesses around the world operate in some of the worst countries in terms of human rights, government quality and authoritarian regimes. They don’t care, as long as there are profits to be made and they have certainty about the rules,” Toros Rios said.
“When there’s uncertainty about the rules, then is when investors stop investing. Once the new rules are set, and more or less investors have an idea of what they’re dealing with, things will be more or less the same [as] what they’ve been here right now,” he added.
World
Israel slams UN report as ‘political blood libel’ for alleging deliberate targeting of Palestinian children
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Israel reacted angrily over a new United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry report alleging the Jewish state had engaged in the “deliberate targeting of Palestinian children.”
Prior reports from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel garnered accusations of antisemitism and incitement to violence.
The latest report, released Wednesday, said that, “based on the evidence reviewed, and consistent with its previous reports, the Commission finds on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces have continued to commit the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
UN EXPERT REPEATS ISRAEL ‘GENOCIDE’ CLAIMS AFTER US CALLS FOR HER REMOVAL
A woman kneels by a memorial site in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, as the community commemorates members killed, taken hostage, or who died in captivity following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)
Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, told Fox News Digital that “this is not an investigative report. It is a political blood libel disguised as a U.N. document. This commission reaches its conclusions before examining the facts and repeatedly publishes reports that serve one purpose only: to vilify Israel. Instead of addressing Hamas’ crimes, the October 7 massacre, the hostages, and Hamas’ cynical use of children and civilians as human shields, the commission has once again chosen to place Israel in the dock.”
Danon added that “Israel will continue to defend its citizens and fight terrorism, regardless of how many false reports are published by fringe actors within U.N. institutions.”
Representatives from the COI and Human Rights Council did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the concerns addressed about the report.
Asked for a reaction from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres to the report, his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, told Fox News Digital “it’s not his report to comment on.”
ISRAELI AMBASSADOR LASHES OUT AT UN OFFICIAL, CONDEMNS UK, FRANCE, CANADA STATEMENT ON AID
A bloodied handprint stains a wall inside a house in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border after a Hamas attack days earlier. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission told reporters during a press briefing that, “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces.” He said “Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”
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Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “sham ‘inquiry’ makes the totally unjustified claim of legal authority, while at the same time systematically violating every conceivable legal rule of fairness, impartiality, and due process. Since its creation in 2021, every call for submissions, every consultation and every hearing held, has been contrived to take seriously the allegations of only one side – trashing literally millions of data points both historical and current to the contrary.”
She said, “the first COI report focused on children…fails to even mention the sickening murders of 9-month-old Kfir Bibas and 4-year-old Ariel Bibas.” She says that “also ignored in the COI report are the hundreds of thousands of Israeli children traumatized by October 7th, by the subsequent mass displacement, and by the excruciating longing for parents absent while defending their country against an inhumane foe.”
Photos of the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz, 84, who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and later killed, are displayed next to candles in the dining room in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, on Feb. 25, 2025, the day of Lifshitz’s funeral after their bodies were returned under a ceasefire agreement. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)
NETANYAHU SHOWS PICTURE OF BIBAS FAMILY AT COMBAT OFFICERS’ GRADUATION: ‘REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR’
Bayefsky complained that though the current COI report “was produced weeks ago,” the COI members “deliberately withheld” the report when appearing before the Human Rights Council last week. “They didn’t publish it until June 23, minutes prior to holding a stage-managed press conference designed to avoid accountability for their wild, unverified accusations,” she claimed.
Another member of the commission told reporters in Geneva that, “There can be no doubt in anyone who reads today’s report that every international legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities towards Palestinian children and they need to be held accountable.”
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 18, 2024. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)
Jonathan Conricus, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, told Fox News Digital that the latest report contains “no evidence to support any of the claims against Israel” and is filled with “inconsistencies in methodology.”
He said the report represents “an escalation, and it marks maybe the most severe attempt by the U.N. ecosystem to delegitimize Israel.”
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Salo Aizenberg, director of media watchdog group HonestReporting, who has researched and debunked many of the claims made by those claiming genocide in Gaza, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “report is built on a fictional battlefield where Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] do not exist, and where hospitals are treated as purely civilian spaces despite extensive evidence of their military use and infiltration by Hamas operatives. It then accuses Israel of deliberately targeting children without producing a single incident supported by evidence of intent.”
Conricus said the report erases “Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the battlefield to create the false kind of perception that Israel was operating out of wanton aggression in a vacuum without there ever being a need for Israeli operations and this is a reoccurring theme.” He also noted that this report and others “use the statements of medical professionals as evidence, even when it’s way beyond their medical expertise, specifically when it comes to how wounds were inflicted.”
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Europe is breaking heat records. These extreme events pose a threat to people’s health both at home and at work. The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), a research centre affiliated with the European Trade Union Confederation, presented a report on Thursday laying out solutions aimed at safeguarding workers’ health in the face of climate change.
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One of the report’s authors emphasised that the danger is not limited to the south of the continent.
“The problem is the worst in the south, of course; that’s where we see most of the accidents. At the same time, though, we have been recording the highest increases in accidents in central and northern Europe,” said Andreas Flouris, professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.
“The south is already hot, and it’s a problem. But the centre and the north are catching up very fast.”
According to the report, around 130 million workers across Europe are exposed to workplace heat stress, resulting in 277,000 related injuries and 230 deaths annually.
An EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) survey from 2025 found that around one in five workers in the EU reported exposure to extreme heat at work in the previous 12 months. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of these heatwaves, which affect health and reduce work capacity.
“The optimum temperature to work at is 16°C. Beyond that, for every 1°C rise, there is an average productivity loss of around 2%,” Flouris told Euronews.
“During an average heatwave in southern Europe, productivity losses reach around 20 to 25%. In central Europe, the figure is between 8 and 14%, and even in Scandinavia, we have recorded losses of 3 to 6% due to heatwaves over the course of a year,” he added.
Based on scientific evidence, the report’s authors propose that the European Union introduce legislation specifically targeting heat risks in the workplace.
“What we propose is a mandatory heat risk assessment, in order to oblige employers to assess and identify the risks related to heat exposure in their workplace. Only by knowing what we are dealing with can we protect workers and prevent the risks associated with heat exposure at work,” said Marouane Laabbas-el-Guennouni, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute.
The report also proposes using a broader index to assess heat stress exposure. The authors argue that temperature should not be the sole indicator, and that humidity and wind speed should also be factored in when determining exposure levels.
The researchers emphasised that heatwaves are a measurable, predictable, and therefore preventable phenomenon.
World
Mubi to Publish Lost ‘Faust’ Bible on Centenary of F.W. Murnau’s Silent Cinema Classic (EXCLUSIVE)
Arthouse distributor, streamer, production company and — since 2015 — publisher Mubi is set to release a book about the silent era classic “Faust” containing material that was until recently thought lost.
“The Faust Bible: The Making of F.W. Murnau’s Masterpiece” is being published by Mubi Editions, presented in partnership with la Cinémathèque française, which will publish globally on Oct. 17.
The book marks 100 years since F.W. Murnau’s fantasy epic, considered one of the prime examples of German expressionist cinema, and brings to light a recently-unearthed artefact of film history: a visual diary of approximately 400 photographs and original illustrations documenting the making of the film almost step-by-step.
Compiled by “Faust” crew members Robert Herlth, Carl Hoffmann, and Walter Röhrig, and originally presented to Murnau inside a prop Bible, this collection was gifted as a memento to the director on the film’s completion and ahead of his move from Germany to Hollywood. However, it was then lost for many years, thought to have been destroyed in World War II, before its recent rediscovery and painstaking restoration by la Cinémathèque française, who acquired it for their collection in 2017.
Now published in full for the very first time, “The Faust Bible: The Making of F.W. Murnau’s Masterpiece” will contain stills and sketches showcasing the film’s lavish costuming and set design, plus detailed storyboarding.
The publication is guided by Laurent Mannoni, scientific director of heritage at la Cinémathèque française, who also contributes a newly commissioned essay and annotations on the discovery of the Bible and its rare contents. Accompanying him are Stefan Drössler, director of the Filmmuseum München, writing on the production history of the film, and K.J. Relth-Miller, director of film programs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, on the film’s lasting legacy in contemporary cinema.
”Preserving and revitalizing film history is at the heart of what we do at Mubi,” said Daniel Kasman, Mubi’s vice president of publishing. “The discovery of the astonishing Faust ‘Bible’ presents a beautiful opportunity to share this glorious classic of silent cinema with audiences new and old. It offers profound new insight into the mind of one of cinema’s greatest auteurs, revealing the meticulous artistry behind this groundbreaking visual fantasia, created by some of the most talented craftspeople of their day—while standing as a remarkable work of art in its own right.”
To mark both the book’s publication and the centenary of “Faust,” Mubi will present a series of international events and screenings throughout autumn 2026, including a public launch at la Cinémathèque française in Paris on Oct 17. Further details are to be announced.
“One of the most influential and pioneering filmmakers of the silent era, F.W. Murnau was known for the privacy of his film sets,” said la Cinémathèque française’s Mannoni. “Reluctant to welcome visitors, he was even less inclined to reveal his creative process. The rediscovery of the Faust ‘Bible’ offers extraordinary insight into the making of one of cinema’s great masterpieces. Published in its entirety for the first time, it allows readers to trace the creation of this legendary film.”
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