Welcome to the Oxford Undergraduate Law Podcast, where we discuss the law and its implications
on our relationships, our markets and our futures. I'm Jake Pronger, one of your podcast
editors. We platform academics, practitioners and experts from different backgrounds on
this podcast. This series was made possible by the generous support of Crown Office Chambers,
one of the leading London sets of Chambers specialising in civil and commercial work.
With the inauguration of Donald J. Trump on the 20th of January 2025, the elections which
have been on many people's minds have been the elections which took place in the United
States of America. However, just south of the border, Mexico is shaping up to face some
of the most important elections in its history, which have the potential to shape the face
of the North and South American continent and indeed the world for the foreseeable future.
Over the course of 2025 and 2027, Mexico will look to hold elections to replace some 7,000
judges and the soonest of these elections will take place in June of this year. Judicial
reform in Mexico has long been a contentious issue with widespread calls to address corruption,
inefficiency and lack of accountability within the judiciary. The latest reform initiative
known as Plan C has sparked significant debate due to its sweeping proposals including electing
judges by popular vote and creating a disciplinary court to oversee judicial conduct. On the
15th of September, Mexico's Senate approved the reform by 86 to 41 and the constitution
was therefore amended. Plan C follows two earlier reform attempts, imaginatively called
Plan A and Plan B. Plan A was introduced by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and
his Morena party, aiming to make constitutional changes including reducing the number of electoral
councillors and centralising electoral oversight under the National Electoral Institute, the
INE. This proposal was rejected due to concerns of electoral interference and the risk of
undermining the democratic process. Subsequently, Plan B was introduced in November of 2022,
focusing on secondary laws to reduce the administrative powers of the INE and to introduce elections
for its officials. However, in June of 2023, Mexico's Supreme Court declared Plan B unconstitutional
in a 9 to 11 supermajority. It did so on the grounds that these reforms were rushed through
Congress without proper debate and according to Justice Alberto Pérez Dayán, this violated
the right to freedom of expression, transparency and access to public information and accountability.
Supporters of Plan C, including Morena and some civil society groups, argued that the reforms
would democratise the judiciary and address corruption and nepotism concerns. Conversely,
organisations such as the INE, Human Rights Watch and Legal Scholars have warned that these
reforms threaten judicial independence and risk concentrating power in the executive
branch alone. Critics also highlight that the reforms could undermine the judiciary's
role as a check on the government's power, potentially eroding democratic safeguards.
The controversy surrounding Plan C underscores the tension between calls for judicial reform
and the imperative to preserve the rule of law and constitutional balance in Mexico.
Today I am delighted to be joined by my guest, Luz Orozco y Villa. She is a legal scholar
and author of the article entitled, 'The Dangerous Path of Mexico's Judicial Reform: What is
at stake for judicial independence in the Americas?' Luz is a DPhil (PhD) in law candidate
at the Faculty of Law. Her research lies at the intersection of constitutional law and
emerging technologies. Supervised by Professor Rowbottom, her doctoral thesis focuses on the
constitutionalisation of the digital environment, specifically the case of online service providers
regarding content moderation.
Prior to joining Oxford, Luz worked as a career clerk for the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice
and as a research adviser at the gender equality programme of the Federal Judicial Council.
She has taught international human rights law, philosophy of human rights, family law
and gender justice to undergraduate law students at different universities. She completed an
LLM from Columbia Law School as a Fulbright Scholar and an LLB from el Instituto Tecnológico
Autónimo de México. Luz is currently the co-convener of the Future of Technology and
Society Discussion Group.
Thanks so much for having me, Jake. I'm delighted to be here.
Thank you. Well, I think we should get straight into the questions. So, most of our audience
are not familiar with the Mexican judicial system, nor would they have any links to Mexico
at all. But I think it's important to highlight Mexico's role as a key player in the Americas.
And therefore, if we could provide a brief overview of judicial reforms in Mexico, including
the background on Plan C and why these reforms are considered so controversial.
Yes, of course, Jake. Thanks so much for the question. I think it would be important to
highlight three components of the very massive judicial overhaul that was passed by Congress.
I would address the removal of all sitting judges at all levels, the replacement with
newly popularly elected judges and the creation of the disciplinary court. And I think each
one of these components is truly controversial.
The first one is this idea of removing all sitting judges from the justices of the Supreme
Court to all local judges as well as at the federal level. We're talking about more
than 6,000 people being immediately removed from office during the next three years. And
this is highly controversial because according to international human rights law standards,
you can only remove judges under permitted grounds such as age, retirement, misconduct,
serious incompetence. And the rationality that is behind this is pretty simple. Judges
have a guarantee of tenure. You need some breathing space in order to do the job. In
order to be able to decide cases freely, you need to not fear the possibility of losing
your job. You're not having the fear of losing your job, right? So this is in itself unprecedented,
I think, in the global scale. There's not another case in history where all the judiciary
of a country is removed. And then the second component is a replacement with newly elected
judges by the people, right? Like this idea of electing through popular vote all the judiciary.
And well, according to international human rights law, there's not an established specific
procedure to designate judges. International human rights standards do establish that these
elections should be based in personal merit and qualifications, not your political endorsements,
right? So it's very important to guarantee that judges have, as I've said, the qualifications
in order to do their job. And it really doesn't matter how popular you are, but that you're
in a position to take a technical decision when you are deciding over a case. And the
third element that I would say is important of this reform, and it's also very problematic
under constitutional law, is the creation of this disciplinary court that will be in
charge of overseeing and disciplining judges. And these members of the court will also be
elected by popular vote. And I think the design in itself is problematic because the reform
grants the executive and the legislative branches a lot of power to preselect the candidates
that were eventually run for the elections in order to contend for one place at the court.
And according again to international human rights law, any disciplinary system should
be isolated from political interference. And not only that, the reform also provides for
disciplinary grounds for sanctioning judges that are too vague and too open-ended. So
this grants a broad discretion for this disciplinary court that I would say does not provide the
possibility for a judge to check on political power or protect minorities as it's their
job to do so.
I think there's certainly something to be said that if, for example, at a nation's
entire level, if you're electing around 7,000 judges, there's a possibility for the people
in those elections, if you have over 80 candidates on your ballot, the likelihood of you knowing
the extent to which each candidate is going to be able to contribute in a positive way
to your future is very decreased. You're not making an informed decision in the same way
that you are when you're electing the president of the country. So what would you make of
the commentators who say that Morena was elected and they have been re-elected under Claudia
Sheinbaum with a huge majority in Congress and that they were elected on the grounds
of introducing reform into the judicial system for the country as a whole. And therefore
these reforms are needed to bring about that reform.
Yeah, I think you raise a relevant point. One of the arguments that the Morena Party uses
in order to legitimize this judicial overhaul is that they actually have a popular mandate
after their sweeping victory in June elections. I would push back on that argument because
I don't think that actually these reforms were passed in a very deliberative process
that respects actually that democratic substance. I think actually the way that Morena secured
the vote in order to pass this bill was deeply problematic. It was more about political extortion
rather than having a broad consensus among the different parties in both chambers of
Congress. So I don't see a linear, I don't see the connection between a sweeping victory
which of course happened and Claudia Sheinbaum was elected by I think 35 million votes. Still
I don't think the Mexican people had enough time to actually get engaged and discuss thoroughly
this reform that was presented in February. We're talking only about a few months and
I think all the relevant stakeholders in terms of civil society actually caution against
the passing of this reform which I think it's important to take into account. Like every
single NGO that works in justice, universities, students, there were massive civil protests
in Mexico asking maybe not necessarily against the reform but asking for more time in order
to be able to actually discuss it and reach a broader consensus. I would tend to agree
with the statements that you make, in particular to other scholars, Mr. Parra and Mr. Heckel
in one of the recent articles that they wrote. They mentioned that the way in which the reform
was passed in Congress, because of the protests it was held in another room and at one point
one of the senators who said he wasn't previously going to vote for the reform, he was no longer
ill and turned up to vote in favour of the reform. Many people argue that there must
have been some back works, behind-the-scenes political meandering for him to be forced
to vote in a way allegedly the senator had corruption investigations and he was going
to face charges which he no longer is facing. So I wonder to what extent do you think the
reform in and of itself was passed in a democratic manner in which the people elected the Morena
party to do so? Yes, I agree with you. I think it was like a whole Mexican telenovela happening
in Congress. There was not only the change of venue that you mentioned, like at the end
I think at the Chamber of Deputies it was passed in a gym, literally. But yeah, you
mentioned that there were three votes that were highly contentious people from the opposition,
legislators from the opposition that eventually voted with Morena party and it seems to be
the case that it was in exchange of the dropping of some charges so it was definitely political
extortion behind it. One could argue that this is politics but I would say that since
it was amidst huge massive civil protests we should be much more committed to broader
consensus, more public involvement if we really want to reform that constitution in a legitimate
way. Yes, yeah. So I think I read recently that 74 of AMLO's proposed laws were struck
down by the Supreme Court under Norma Piña's presidency. He obviously saw that as an affront
to his role as the president and therefore instituted the change of Plan A which failed
and then Plan B and then followed by Plan C which finally passed. Do you think it's
legitimate for a president who, again, they would argue that the mandate is from the people,
if their laws are in some way affronted to the constitution, should that process be hindered
by an independent judiciary which is unelected and therefore unaccountable to the people?
Yes, I think if we look back and take into account the real motives behind the reform,
I don't think right at the centre is access to justice. I think this comes out of political
revenge, right? As you mentioned, the Supreme Court struck down several of former President
Andrés Manuel López Obrador initiatives. For instance, we can think about Plan B in
terms of the electoral authorities, but we can also think about the militarization, this
idea of putting the Guardia Nacional, the institution that is in charge of public safety,
under the Secretary of Defense, which was super controversial and that was struck down
by the Supreme Court as well. So it seemed that the Supreme Court began, it was like
a public enemy of the executive. It was precisely the only institution that put some obstacles
to his political project and that's the reason behind what we're looking at now as the judicial
reform. Yeah. When you mention like 'enemy of the people' or 'enemy of the public', it,
as someone who's studying in the English jurisdiction and English law, it brings one to think about
the Miller cases, which were obviously those famous cases where the government or I suppose
the executive tried to pass laws without the approval of the legislative body. And in that
case, the Supreme Court did not allow the government to do so and they had to require
consent from parliament to leave the European Union for the reasons of Brexit. In the high,
in the Divisional Court's decision, some of the tabloids in the UK printed the faces of the
pictures of the judges and called them 'enemy of the people'. So I think this brings us to
a point that you had in your article that it's very easy for when a populist figure
thinks that there's an improper check on their power, they turn to, I suppose, demagoguery
to suit their own ends. So it really is what the question that I'm asking is behind these
reforms. Is it less of reforming the Mexican judicial system and more so of a power grab
in favour of the executive?
I would agree with that reading. I think since maybe 2022, we can even trace it back a bit
in Andrés Manuel's career. He was, he's been always very critical and skeptical about judges
but his derogatory rhetoric became really strong in 2022. And after the Supreme Court
actually struck down some of his initiatives, he had like this open, hostile and intimidating
discourse against judges in his mañaneras, as you know, these like morning sessions that
he would address the people and basically complain about the judiciary. So he began
building on this idea of Supreme Court and particularly President Chief Justice Piña
as a public enemy, right?
Yes, yeah. And so some scholars have argued that at its very best, if we take, I suppose,
an optimistic view of the situation, Mexico's judiciary or I suppose judicial system is
in dire need of some reform. I think according to the judiciary's own data, they received
391 complaints of corruption and nepotism within the ranks, but none led to the dismissal
of any judges. And so there's an idea or conception of the judiciary in Mexico being full of nepo-babies,
I suppose you could call them, or people who have some tangential link to the judiciary.
And in that sense, you're not getting the, it's not a meritocratic system where you're
getting the best judges to produce the best judicial outcomes. You're just keeping it
within a close-knit circle. So at its very best, the reform is seeking to change that
in a misguided way. But obviously at its very worst, it can be seen as authoritarianism
in action. I wonder what you make of those claims. Which one do you think is more likely
to be the case?
Well, I believe that both nepotism and corruption are definitely one of the problems that we
are facing in the judiciary. And this is not new. I think a thorough reform of the administration
of justice in Mexico is long overdue. I think the big problem is that this judicial reform
is not solving any of those issues. And I would actually identify other problems as
even more urgent than corruption and nepotism. If we look at the structural obstacles to
the access of justice in Mexico, I think those are much more relevant to address. Of course,
oversight of nepotism is an element, but it's only one among many.
Yeah. I think that's certainly true. Another aspect of these reforms is the move to increase
the amount of time someone on trial can be kept in pretrial detention before they've
actually received their conviction. And many people seem to overlook the human rights implications
of doing so. In Mexico, prosecutors are responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes.
And in 2022, they opened 2.2 million investigations, but only 238,000 made it before a judge, which
is about 10%. So clearly there is a disparity between the amount of people who are being
held in pretrial captivity and the amount of those people who are genuinely, possibly
guilty of a crime. So I wonder what you make of if the headlines of electing judges is
hiding some arguably more impactful human rights violations beneath the surface.
I think that's definitely the case. I think, yeah, the 'la prevención preventiva', which is what
you're describing precisely, is contrary to international human rights law. It has already
been decided by the Inter-American Court of Justice. Mexico is actually violating its
international obligations by keeping this figure in the constitution. And yeah, we have
high impunity rates and huge delays, overloaded prosecutors, underfunded police. We have structural
obstacles and clearly electing judges is not going to solve any of them.
Yes. Yeah. I think to borrow a phrase from Lord Leggatt in a recent Supreme Court case
in the UK, he said that "you can only care about that, but you know about." So this brings
us back to the practical issues of electing around 7,000 judges, 1,300 in Mexico City
alone. How are, I suppose, the general public meant to inform themselves about which judge
they have the possibility of electing? And therefore, how can we say that there's any
benefit being accrued to the Mexican people by electing these officials? It seems that
the party in power, which is Morena right now, would have a more than average chance
of being able to push the candidates which they prefer or which are more likely to align
with their views. And therefore, those people are more likely to be voted in by the general
public because they would have more, I suppose, more screen time with them, more chance of
being known by them.
Yes, definitely. There are two puzzling elements of that, of that election first. Actually,
there will be a preselection done by the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, and that
will be the first filter. So it's not a direct popular vote. And in that preselection, you
can imagine the influence that the party in power can have. And there is a second element
I would add, and it's the possibility for the normal citizen to actually engage with
the campaigns, right? Candidates are supposed not to receive any public or private funding
for their campaign. So I wonder how are they going to actually communicate with the citizens
and the electorate in that way. So yes, it seems that there is a really bad design in
terms of this electoral system for judges.
Yes. And I noticed that the proposers of the reform have mentioned that there'll be free
time or airtime allocated to all the candidates. Obviously, I'm not sure about the feasibility
of that for so many candidates. Obviously, the election will be spread out between 2025
and 2027. But again, I think it brings us back to this problem of if the airtime is
being administered by the party in power, the people who are likely to receive the primetime
slots are those which are likely to align with their views. Do you think there's a possibility
of international organisations such as the UN or the Inter-American Court to somehow
be involved in this process and make it more democratic in the sense that it will ensure
that the body which is administering the process by which judges are elected is held to account
to do it in a way which is fair and impartial?
I'm kind of pessimistic about this. I think the UN rapporteur on the independence of judges
has already warned Mexico, caution against this reform. There's already a communication
in that sense. It's the same for the Inter-American Commission. Recently, we held some hearings
regarding the judicial reform. Although there was, of course, not yet a decision on it,
some of the comisionados clearly stated their doubts and their concerns regarding this judicial
reform and the Mexican state is still carrying the reform and implemented it on those terms.
For the future, if thinking about the influence that international organisations can have,
I'm a little bit sceptical. For me, it's so antithetical, the idea of electing judges
with a constitutional democracy, that even if in the process there are some kind of channels
for civil society to participate. I think in terms of the design, simply judges should
not respond to the electorate. In order to be able to do their job, they need to be independent
from political interference. Even if civil society can participate, for instance, in
the designating processes, I'm quite pessimistic that this will change and that the best judges,
the more prepared ones, the more technical, will actually be elected. I think the ones
that will be elected, as you said, are the ones that are more close to Morena.
That would be very unfortunate indeed. I wonder, in your opening statement and in your article
you mentioned that the significant role Mexico plays in influencing the politics and I suppose
setting the judicial precedent, judicial standard for the rest of South and North America.
What can be learned from any attempt in North or South America to elect judges, number one?
And number two, has there been any success in this regard?
Yes. When we were discussing, scholars were discussing, because this happened honestly
so fast that we didn't have a broad discussion about these issues. Of course, Bolivia and
the US cases were highlighted, but I don't think that either Bolivia or the US have meaningful
experiences or significant experiences in terms of this idea. I think actually that
there is a false analogy and Francisco has an extraordinary article regarding how we
shouldn't look at the US as an argument for the judicial reform because the case of the
US is very exceptional and it also circumscribes to local judges whereas the Mexican judicial
reform is actually overhauling both the federal and the local state and is removing all of
them, not only local judges. And the case of Bolivia is also deeply problematic. I wouldn't
look at Bolivia as a successful story about the democratization of the judiciary. It hasn't
worked. The electorate was not engaged with the whole process and now you have a political
capture of apex courts. And it was also only in the case of Bolivia only related to
the apex courts, not the whole judiciary. So the cases are different. We shouldn't draw
quick analogies and even if we draw these analogies, they are not successful cases,
I would say. On the point about apex courts, I think it's also important to note that the
election of the Supreme Court was changing the Supreme Court's constitution from 11
to 9 justices in line with the US, but they will all be up for election. So that makes
it very likely in the US there's talk of the US Supreme Court being packed by Donald Trump's
nominees. But the same will be true to a much larger degree in the Mexican case where the
likelihood, as we said, of judges being elected because they have backing from the Morena
party, the likelihood of the Supreme Court being made up of Morena candidates or Morena
affiliated judges is a lot higher. Because there's less judges now, the likelihood of
being in the majority is increased. And so I wonder if Mexico's Supreme Court has the
power to determine laws to be unconstitutional. And that was one of the last checks on the
executive power. Where did we get the rest of these checks on the powers of the executive
branch or the presidential decisions? If you dismantle the branches that are supposed
to check on power, then you have nothing. It sounds like an exaggeration, but if you
capture the court, there is nothing left. That's true. I suppose in the UK we have a
conception of the ability of our legislative body and I suppose conjoined with the executive
here in the House of Commons, the executive has a very powerful position because they
command the majority of the House of Commons. And so we have the doctrine of parliamentary
sovereignty which all first-year lawyers would be familiar with from their constitutional
law seminars. But essentially if you had to boil it down, it would be that whatever parliament
decides or enacts is law, is passed by virtue of their parliamentary sovereignty. So some
people would suggest that because Mexico's Congress, they voted however you want to cut
it, in the end the vote was passed for the reform. Could the argument be made that Mexico
is a beneficiary of the same principle of parliamentary sovereignty or is there a difference
between the two contexts of the UK and Mexico? That's a hard question. I would not dare to,
because I'm not an expert in parliamentarism and sovereignty of parliament according to
the British system. But I would say that right now, since basically Morena has a strong majority,
it's not a qualified majority, but it's a strong majority, and we have a presidential
tradition that maybe on paper is not that strong, but in terms of culture, the presidential
figure still is super powerful, then you have full House, right? So not anymore checks and
balances. So I wonder if you can move on to some questions about some alternatives of
what we might have preferred. Alternatives? Yeah. So what alternative reforms would you
suggest to address the legitimate concerns about the judiciary without compromising its independence?
That's also a big question. The way that I thought that I could address it was by highlighting
the shortcomings of the current system, but I think I already mentioned the high impunity rates
that delays overloaded courts, marginalized communities doesn't have any access. But I
would say that going forward, I think instead of electing judges, we have a fair amount
of important measures that we should take into account. And I would say that these measures
should be much more structural and vicious. Instead of focusing on the selection methods
of judges that could lead, as we've said, potentially to political capture, I would
say that we need to fund police, we need to fund prosecutors, we need to fund public defenders.
There is a need for a professionalization of all public servants and also to work at
the local level. I think it's very important to strengthen the local judiciaries. But this
involves money. So that's part of, I would say, the trick of the judicial reform that
even without funding, you're saying that you're doing something, but at the end, you're actually
not changing, as I've said, the structural problems of the administration of justice
in Mexico. Yes. So on a more optimistic note, many people seem to regard that Claudia Sheinbaum
is less radical than her predecessor, AMLO. And obviously, the constitutional reform lays
out the broad framework by which judges will be elected and the changes to the pre-incarceration
regulations, et cetera. But do you think on a more practical note that Claudia Sheinbaum
being more measured in her presidential approach would be laying out the framework of this
reform in a more measured and sensible way, with secondary legislation? That's a very
interesting point. And actually, I think she has been in power for just a few months, but
seem to be originally a much more maybe moderate leader. I think in terms of the results, she
hasn't been a more moderate leader. And I don't see how secondary legislation can make
up for what the constitution says right now, that is that we are going to have elections
next June and that we are going to remove all these sitting judges. So I don't see any
moderation at all. Let's see how this works in the following months. But things are looking
kind of gloomy, to be honest. And I am curious to see how the reform will be implemented.
But I think there will be a counter-reform. And we can also see this maybe happening already
in terms of the feasibility of the judicial reform by the electoral authorities saying
that they actually don't have time. So they actually asked for more time in order to organize
the elections. This was denied by Congress, both the executive and the legislative power.
But let's see if they actually get away with it. Maybe even the implementation of the reform
will prove to be impossible. So reality will hit before. I don't know.
I think that is certainly possible. So I think we have been speaking for about 40 minutes,
so we are going to take a quick break. Before we move on to the next segment of the
podcast, we would like to express our gratitude for the generous support of Crown Office Chambers.
Crown Office Chambers is a leading set consisting of over 100 commercial and common law barristers,
arbitrators and mediators. They have just released a short film introducing their pupilages.
The film, as well as other information about pupilages, can be found on their website at
www.crownofficechambers.com/careers/pupilage. Thank you
once again to Crown Office Chambers. Now back to our discussion.
In your article, you mentioned that these reforms are part of a broader trend towards
'autocratisation’. I wonder if you could expand on what you meant by this and how significant
this is for the Americans and what it signals to other countries in the region.
Yes, thank you very much for the question. I refer to these reforms as a playbook on
autocratisation that happens when a legitimately elected leader dismantles the capacity of
other branches to check their power. And I think this is precisely what we are looking
at with the Mexican judicial reform. Basically, removing judges from office and blaming it
on the Supreme Court is clearly an excuse for trying to eliminate all the checks and
balances and to basically, I would say, capture the judiciary. And this is pretty, I would
say concerning and should raise all the alarms in the region. Not only, I would say even
in Latin America, but in the whole world that is this can actually happen. And it happens
in Mexico in less than a I would say seven months. So also there is a time trap here.
As you recall, at the same time, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador proposed 18 constitutional amendments
and it was impossible for academics, political science, people that were involved actually
to even follow up with what he was doing. And of course civil society, I would say,
didn't have the time to actually engage with all the reforms that were put down on the
table. So this is part, I guess, of a larger trend and we need to keep an eye on that.
Yes, yeah, I totally agree with you. I mentioned or I noticed that you had an expertise in
the family law system of Mexico. And I wondered just now how you think that the, as part of
the reforms, as a certain qualifications that a judge must meet, they must be nominated
by certain parties and also have reference letters, but they also have to have a law
degree, but only average of grade of I think it was a seven or an eight, which is not particularly
high. And in the people who have been, you know, gone through the Mexico's education
system in the law suggest that that's too low of a threshold. And what potential impacts
that might have on the day to day running of a family court, for example, for the justice
being done to those people involved.
Yes, totally. I think that the current requirements to run for an election for an electoral, for
a judicial position are even ridiculous, like the five letters of recommendation, eight
out of 10. I guess that the most concerning part of these judicial reform or component
is precisely that is destroying the judicial career. Like Mexico, of course, faces many,
many challenges in terms of access to justice. But one of the, I would say topics that where
we had really made some progress was precisely building a strong judicial career, meritocratic,
I would say judges needed to pass exams. And it was not easy. It took like usually it was
almost like 20 years in order for a judge to become a judge. And that is all gone. Now
you need five letters of recommendation and eight out of 10 points in your degree.
Yeah, I think some student-run societies here have stricter requirements to run for those
political offices. Well, we've been talking for nearly an hour now and I think the discussion
has been very fruitful. Thank you so much for your time. I would have one more question,
if I may. I noticed that you have an interest in the use of AI and commercial systems. But
more broadly speaking, there's some talk in the UK jurisdiction about the possibility
of AI one day becoming so advanced that it's capable of producing judgments with a high
probability of valid conclusions in the sense that, you know, a judge is only as fallible
as the next human being, but obviously much more experienced in that judicial system. But if
an AI could do the same role, then it could be desirable for reasons of efficiency and
cost to introduce AI-assisted decision making. And in parts of Mexico's judiciary, that's
already being done, apparently. So I wonder if you think that AI could have any or could
provide any risks or advantages to these reforms. Could it help mitigate some of the things
that we've discussed as a challenge or do you not see it as being capable of doing so
at this stage at the very least? Yes, thank you very much for the question. I cannot predict
the future, but I think currently, at least in the Mexican landscape, in terms of the
AI ecosystem, we don't have the safeguards in place in order to open up the black boxes
that come along with AI systems working for the public system. And I would say the use
of AI technologies may pose great risks in terms of being opaque. If it would be possible
to work on accountability and transparency measures, I would be more optimistic. But
I would say currently, we still have a long way to go. Yes, I think that's certainly
the least dystopian of the two views to take. Well, thank you so much for your time, Luz.
And that concludes this recording of the podcast. Well, that's all the questions that we have
for today. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this episode of the podcast.
Once again, thank you to Crown Office Chambers for making this series possible.