The president of the Senate of the Republic, Gerardo Fernández Noroña, has accused the members of the Judicial Evaluation Committee in Mexico of carrying out a manipulated selection process for judicial positions. Noroña specifically mentioned the participation in this alleged manipulation act of Minister Norma Piña, who heads the Federal Judiciary.
During a press conference, the senator stated that instead of giving opportunities to the most qualified candidates, access to the positions was allowed through favoritism, thus excluding candidates who truly had the necessary competencies. According to Noroña, the number of candidates was intentionally reduced, ensuring that all women on the list had a direct path to the selected candidates' ballot.
Among the excluded candidates who could have been chosen through a more equitable process, the senator mentioned Marisela Morales Ibáñez, former head of the PGR with Felipe Calderón; magistrate Ana María Ibarra Olguín; and Paula María García Villegas Sánchez Cordero, daughter of retired minister Olga Sánchez Cordero. Noroña openly criticized the actions of the jurists in charge of evaluating the candidacies and revealed that some of them resigned due to pressure and the unfavorable conditions in which they had to work.
The Morena senator pointed out that the actions of the Judicial Evaluation Committee were irregular and favored certain candidates, excluding others who, in his opinion, were the most suitable. Noroña highlighted that if a more inclusive selection process had been allowed, the list of candidates would have been much more diverse and, above all, more representative of truly qualified profiles to hold the positions.
The episode of the mass resignation of members of the mentioned committee evidences, according to Noroña, the lack of transparency and favoritism present in the selection of judges, magistrates, and ministers in Mexico, something that has generated controversies in previous times. The senator lamented the exclusion of qualified candidates in favor of a biased selection that, in his view, does not respond to criteria of equity or suitability.
