SCJN President Norma Piña. Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

During a private session of Mexico’s Supreme Court Justice of the Nation (SCJN) to discuss proposed reforms to the nation’s judicial branch on Monday, July 1, Minister Yasmín Esquivel requested the resignation of SCJN President Norma Piña for her purported role in exacerbating relations between Mexico’s judicial, executive and legislative branches.

Esquivel, who is closely associated with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) in-power National Regeneration Movement (Morena), reportedly did not receive any support for her resignation request from her fellow SCJN magistrates.

However, Esquivel’s request was endorsed by Morena Senate Leader and Political Coordination Board President Ricardo Monreal, who claimed Piña’s failure to “self-reform” the judiciary branch led to AMLO’s controversial ‘plan c’ reforms during a parliamentary session just hours earlier.

“The lack of expertise, rational understanding and political intelligence of the person who represented and represents the court, caused and continues to cause the harshness and bad relationship to be a constant in public affairs across the government branches,” said Monreal at the time.

“It was not until the change of the presidency of the court, when Arturo Zaldívar’s term ended and after the appointment of Piña that the relationship between powers began to change and, hiding behind the pretext that autonomy and independence had to be maintained, the relationship began to become tense,” continued Monreal. “This triggered the president to present twenty initiatives to reform the Mexican Constitution, which propose reforms to the judicial branch.”

For his part, López Obrador took to his daily morning press conference on Tuesday, July 2 to say that there is no need for Piña to resign as the head of Mexico’s judicial branch as the action would not “water down” his planned reforms.

“There is no need for anyone to resign, it is just a matter of continuing the debate on the need for reform,” said the federal executive at the time.