Is Mexico’s Supreme Court biased? Friday’s mañanera recapped

President Claudia Sheinbaum held her Friday morning press conference in the port city of Veracruz, the largest city in the state of the same name.

During her engagement with reporters, Sheinbaum was asked about the alleged political leanings of the Supreme Court, while Security Minister Omar García Harfuch fielded questions related to the training a group of Mexican security personnel is currently undertaking in the United States.

Here is a recap of the president’s Jan. 23 mañanera.

A biased Supreme Court? 

A reporter noted that the newspaper he works for, El Universal, reported this week that the “new” Supreme Court (SCJN) — whose bench is now made up of nine justices elected in Mexico’s first ever judicial elections last June — has handed down at least six rulings in favor of reforms and decrees promoted by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

He also stated that in the almost five months since the new justices were sworn in, the SCJN has not handed down any ruling against reforms or decrees sponsored by López Obrador or Morena, the party AMLO founded.

The reporter subsequently asked Sheinbaum whether she saw “any bias” toward Morena in Mexico’s Supreme Court, whose nine justices are affiliated with, seen as sympathetic to, or were at least tacitly supported by the ruling party in last year’s judicial elections.

The president responded that the Supreme Court itself would have to answer “those questions.”

She subsequently highlighted that the SCJN now holds “public sessions,” allowing Mexicans to get to know justices’ arguments in support of their rulings.

In the past, Sheinbaum added, decisions were taken “in the dark.”

The president also highlighted that the “previous court” — i.e. the SCJN before the justices elected last year were sworn in — “voted against everything,” a reference to various rulings it handed down against government initiatives during López Obrador’s presidency.

Published on Thursday, El Universal’s report could be cited by government critics as proof that the election of Supreme Court justices in a vote promoted by Sheinbaum — and largely boycotted by the opposition — has led to the elimination of a vital check on executive and legislative power, as they warned would occur.

However, one person who posted the article to social media opined: “Does the Supreme Court have to rule against the government to create justice?”

García Harfuch: Mexican security personnel were invited to undergo training in US

Six days after Mexican security personnel boarded a U.S. military plane at Toluca Airport to fly to the United States to undergo training, a reporter asked García Harfuch to comment on the kind of drills in which they would be participating.

The security minister first stressed that Mexican security personnel’s participation in training in the United States is not a new phenomenon, but rather something that has occurred for “many years.”

He said that the training takes place either after an invitation from a U.S. authority or upon the request of the Mexican government.

“It’s always been like that,” García Harfuch said.

He said that “in this case,” the United States Northern Command extended an invitation to Mexican security personnel to participate in “courses” focusing on “tactical specializations,” including “shooting” and “investigation.”

García Harfuch said that the Security Ministry personnel would stay in the U.S. for around 40-45 days.

Asked whether they were at a military base in the U.S., he responded: “Yes, it’s a base in Mississippi, I think.”

The arrival of the U.S. Air Force plane at Toluca Airport last Saturday came at a particularly sensitive time in the Mexico-U.S. security relationship as U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this month that the United States would begin targeting Mexican cartels on land. In addition, The New York Times reported on Jan. 15 that the United States was “intensifying pressure” on Mexico “to allow U.S. military forces to conduct joint operations to dismantle fentanyl labs inside the country.”

On Monday, Sheinbaum stressed that the U.S. Air Force plane wasn’t carrying U.S. troops or weapons. She assured reporters that the arrival of the plane in Toluca wasn’t in any way sinister, but rather a routine part of bilateral security cooperation.

However, the president did concede that it would have been better for the Mexican security personnel to have traveled to the United States on a Mexican Air Force plane rather than a U.S. one.