During a session of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation’s (SCJN) “Study Circles” on May 29, 2026, Justice Lenia Batres Guadarrama declared that it is a “lie” that new judges need a judicial career to hold office.
Key details of Batres’ statements include:
Position: The Justice asserted that a judicial career path is not an indispensable requirement for administering justice.
The Court’s example: She defended her position by pointing out that, at that time, nine of the justices of the highest court did not have a judicial career.
Alternative experience: She affirmed that the necessary preparation can be obtained through extensive experience in the practice of law, academia, litigation, public administration, and Congress, in many cases exceeding 30 years of experience.
The “judicial career,” also known as the “civil service career,” was the mechanism used, prior to the 2024 judicial reform, for the entry, professional development, training, evaluation, promotion, tenure, and separation from office of all professional personnel within the Federal Judiciary.
Its implementation in Mexico set an important precedent for improving justice for citizens, and its elimination has been criticized by civil society organizations, career judges, and even international bodies such as the UN and the IACHR.
Despite this criticism, to support her argument, the minister asserted that none of the nine justices who make up the new Supreme Court had a judicial career, which she maintained does not imply that they are unprepared for the position.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have legal knowledge, the extensive experience that we all have, I believe, of more than 30 years in the practice of law, academia, litigation, public administration, and the Congress of the Union,” she added.
As a result of the 2024 judicial reform, Justice Lenia Batres will preside over the Court for two years, from September 2027 to 2029, a situation that has experts and political analysts, as well as millions of citizens, very worried.
Lenia Batres Guadarrama is a politician from a Marxist family and a founding member of Morena. She arrived at the Supreme Court in December 2023 as a direct appointee of then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to fill the vacancy left by Arturo Zaldívar, which generated criticism due to her family and political ties, since her brother Martí Batres held high-level positions in the nation’s capital.
In the judicial election, she obtained more than 5.8 million votes under the label of “minister of the people,” which will allow her to hold the position for 15 years and 9 months, adding her two terms on the Court.
Source: Animal Politico
