Justice and (Dis)grace

After the earthquakes of 2017, Morena’s national leader at the time, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced the creation of a trust that would support those who were harmed by these natural disasters. Unlike other parties and independent candidates, López Obrador rejected public financing of the trust and instead pledged to donate “half of [his] campaign budget: 103 million pesos.”

While his intentions were laudable, the law does not allow political party resources to be used for such purposes. In fact, the INE has since warned about the unlawfulness of this mechanism. The trust consists of a group of trustees, beneficiaries, and technical support staff who are all close to López Obrador. There are about 58 adherent contributors in total, 49 of whom are members of the party. According to data and videos from the Banking and Securities Commission, the account received cash transfers and deposits of 78 million Mexican pesos, which were later removed in the form of bank checks by 70 people, 56 of whom have connections to Morena. As a result, the INE board voted on a resolution to impose a fine of 197 million Mexican pesos.

This resolution was challenged, which led to the shocking court decision a few days ago by the Superior House of the Electoral Court of Judicial Power of the Federation. The Court revoked the INE’s resolution and the imposed fine, despite all the evidence. It even received records of the presumed beneficiaries but ruled to omit them as evidence. In its decision, the Court claimed that the INE did not fully investigate the origin and destination of the resources and violated the presumption of innocence of those implicated. “The possibility exists,” concluded the sentence, “that the trust has been created by Morena affiliates or supporters in order to create social assistance support, without any political or electoral purposes.”

The TEPJF’s alarming sentence shows how some players are trying to win over the President-elect and his party. True justice seeks to judge the facts and determine culpability while avoiding subjective assessment. Seeking to emulate Juárez, the Court wanted to impart justice and grace, but instead ended up covering up an illegality.

A serious problem arises when democratic institutions bend themselves to power. The counterweights that uphold democracy are diminished and the balance of forces is lost. We are seeing this in the Legislature, in the procuration of justice, and in the unfortunate resolutions of the Judiciary.

Rather than the so-called Fourth Transformation, we are taking firm steps towards a deep institutional regression. We will all pay the cost.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.