Photo: Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies

By KELIN DILLON

On Tuesday, Oct. 17, Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies passed the controversial initiative to defund 13 of the Judicial Branch of the Federation’s (PJF) trusts for the sum of 15 billion pesos.

The initiative passed with 259 votes in favor from the in-power National Regeneration Movement (Morena) and its allies and with 205 votes against from opposition parties the National Action Party (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

The vote came as members of the PJF’s labor union protested the move outside the Chamber of Deputies, a demonstration Morena characterized as Supreme Court Justice of the Nation President (SCJN) Norma Piña’s “use of workers as a human shield.”

However, six of the 13 trusts up for extinction pertain specifically to PJF workers’ pensions, medical support and other labor rights.

At the beginning of Tuesday’s debate, opposition parties filed four suspensions – all of which were rejected – against the initiative, claiming that the “the disappearance of the trusts is political revenge by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) against Minister Piña.”

“This is a robbery, a robbery of the rights of the workers of the Judicial Branch of the Federation and that is why they are demonstrating in the streets, they are rights that are protected in the constitution,” said PAN Deputy Margarita Zavala.

If approved by the Mexican Senate, the PJF will only have one trust left moving forward.