Goodbye to the rule of law?

With Sunday's judicial election, a new page opens in the national chronicle, one that is hardly heroic, despite the government's dreams. It will be the chronicle of an era of uncertainty, faced with the transition from one justice system to another and, more fearsomely, the repercussions of the lack of an autonomous and independent federal judiciary and Supreme Court. Who will exercise the powers to defend citizens from state abuses; the Constitution from a legislature eager for control; women and girls from violent husbands and fathers; journalists from arrogant officials; and anyone else from false accusations and malpractice by extortionists, corrupt officials, or perverse family members?

This is not about exalting the existing system as an ideal of justice, nor about going into the details of the procedures that legal experts have explained in various forums. Human rights violations have been documented in this space, cases of domestic abuse where victims have been doubly harmed by corrupt judges and magistrates. These and other shortcomings could have been corrected, so it is regrettable that, instead of proposing to improve this system, the regime has decided to demolish the entire edifice between now and 2027, closing the doors to the law, to the possible justice, the one we deserve.

We'll be told repeatedly that the others were corrupt and the new ones will be untainted, that we must trust a government that only looks out for the people and strives to expand democracy. No matter how many fallacies and lies they try to convince us, the results will be clear. Starting with the lack of enthusiasm for the judicial election and the further weakening of the INE, the delay in ongoing cases and the accumulation of new ones, while judges are learning. As if, in this and other areas, Mexico could afford to finance the training of officials without sufficient preparation and experience, to throw away the training in gender, human rights, and other fields, for those pursuing judicial careers. There's no need to imagine nightmares of nationalization to worry about the future; just think of the thousands of people who have disappeared, been murdered, and unjustly imprisoned and who will lack prompt and expeditious justice.

While the president boasts that she is making history, international media underscore the novelty of the experiment, not as a democratic paradigm, but as one mired in uncertainty, contrary to legal certainty. As critics here have warned, they also point to the official desire to concentrate power, which the government's triumphant rhetoric fails to conceal. Driven yesterday by resentment and personal ambition, the dismantling of the autonomous PJF today responds to the same desire to shield future legislative initiatives, however unconstitutional they may be, to guarantee the defenselessness of those who oppose predatory megaprojects and other arbitrary measures.

This feat doesn't make history (better). The rise of authoritarianism in Turkey and Hungary has been achieved through the co-optation of the other powers. In the United States, the president's contempt for judges who have opposed the illegality of his decrees or who demand respect for his rulings against arbitrary deportations is growing; he is particularly irritated by judges he appoints who dare to apply the law in contravention of his absolutist aspirations. His hostility toward the rule of law has led his administration to arrest a judge for preventing immigration police from removing a migrant from the courthouse and to disobey a court order to return Abrego García, illegally deported to El Salvador. From deportations to inhumane foreign prisons to ignoring habeas corpus, there is one step Trump seems intent on taking. The autonomous courts—and civil resistance—may still be able to stop him.

Here, in the name of a strange democracy, we are heading toward the destruction of the rule of law. How can we prevent this "historic" disaster?