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By KELIN DILLON

On Tuesday, April 16, former president of Mexico’s Supreme Court Justice of the Nation (SCJN) Arturo Zaldívar announced he would seek the formal impeachment of his successor, Norma Piña, from her position as the SCJN’s current president as established in Article 110 of the Mexican Constitution. 

Zaldívar – alongside National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party head Mario Delgado – requested the impeachment following Piña filing an anonymous complaint against Zaldívar with the Federal Judiciary Council (CJF) for alleged corruption and harassment of those involved at all levels of the judicial process.

According to Zaldívar, Morena and the campaign team of Morena’s presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, Piña’s actions constitute an “improper intervention in the electoral process.”

“Minister Piña decided to actively intervene in the electoral process through the admission of an alleged anonymous complaint without any evidence, which was also distributed massively by the court in the media and on the networks with the sole purpose of damaging politically to me and our movement,” said Zalvídar in the complaint.

Likewise, Zaldívar’s complaint also alleged Piña’s close association with the presidential candidate for Morena’s rival coalition, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN), Xóchitl Gálvez, positioned her directly against Morena.

“Since she became president of the SCJN, her rudeness, her speeches and her votes very clearly place her as an armed opponent of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and now as an opposition arm to the candidacy of Dr. Sheinbaum,” added the filing.

Following the announcement of Zaldívar’s filing, Mexico’s National Association of Circuit Magistrates and District Judges of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (Jufed) publicly stated its support of Piña in the pending proceedings against the SCJN president and noted that threats of impeachment are a common action to intimidate judges in the country.

“Paradoxically, there is an attempt to start a smear campaign against the minister-president for fulfilling the obligation that citizens demand of her: closing spaces for probable acts of corruption and influencing jurisdictional decisions to benefit one of the parties,” said the Jufed.