not even the protesters who invaded the Senate could stop one of the most controversial reforms in recent Mexican history legislators simply moved to an alternative building to pass the judicial reform it will among other things replace the entire Supreme Court and around 7,000 other judges with new ones elected by popular vote president Lopez obor and his party Morena say it will bring Fresh Faces to clean out corruption and convict more criminals judges are going to behave differently because they're not going to be moved by political influence or nepotism but be at the service of the people and feel free to impart Justice on the contrary say judges elections for their post will inevitably bring them closer to the political world they claim they'll need to raise money make promises all of which could compromise their independence how a judge is going to campaign and who's going to back their candidacies I think they're going to be supported by local governments business the clergies and Naros those in the country who have the capacity to position someone in mass media and autonomy will be completely lost the reform also means significantly less experience and qualifications will be required of new judges there have been protests against this reform since it was first proposed but they haven't been massive and there's been a lot of popular support too for president Lopez oor and his party what everyone seems to agree on is that Mexico's justice system is largely broken people have so little faith in it that about 90% of crimes go unreported the question is is this reform really the way to fix it no say several Civil Society groups the problem according to them isn't the judges but a failure by Mexican public prosecutors to successfully investigate crimes only around 10% of all the cases opened every year actually lead to criminal charges before court the reality is that the prosecutors don't have the tools to investigate or the coordination with police to do so they receive a case and then it's just doing paperwork so while we don't get rid of this habit of just investigating on paper and have real investigations based on witness testimony and data analysis things won't improve the judicial reform doesn't concentrate on that but in the next couple of years for better or worse it will change the face of Justice in Mexico John Holman Al Mexico City make sure to subscribe to our channel to get the latest news from aler