Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on Wednesday, Oct. 4. Photo: Presidencia

By KELIN DILLON

During his daily morning press conference on Wednesday, Oct. 4, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced his intentions to divert funding from the federal judiciary to the executive branch – an initiative López Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (Morena) followed through on just hours later in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies.

“The judiciary is rotten,” said AMLO during Wednesday’s press conference. “There are exceptions in judges, in magistrates, in ministers, but the rule is that this power is taken, it is kidnapped, it is at the service of the mafia of economic power and political power, and this is proof more: they granted protection to former Secretary of Public Security Genero García Luna.”

Following López Obrador’s speech, the Morena majority in the Chamber of Deputies officially formalized its intentions to divert 13 of the federal judiciary’s 14 trusts for the sum of 15.45 billion pesos to the Federal Treasury.

However, the legislators failed to identify where the billions of pesos would be allocated following their transfer.

The initiative, as proposed by Morena’s Chamber of Deputies Coordinator Igancio Mier, is set to be reviewed by the chamber’s Budget Commission next Tuesday.

“The intention is to clear up the opacity and discretion in the management of public resources, promoting transparency, accountability and responsibility through the extinction of the 13 funds and trusts under the jurisdiction of the judiciary,” read the proposal.

The initiative went on to claim that the trusts exist “mainly to maintain the benefits of the ministers, counselors and magistrates during their day-to-day lives.”