"The Court is a political instrument and not an organ of justice," Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed in 2014 at a rally in Morelos when the Mexican Supreme Court rejected the popular consultation on energy reform.
Six years later, the board has turned 180 degrees and it is he, now as president, who has claimed in his favor the meaning of that phrase that he used in the past as an opponent.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) to consider constitutional the consultation on whether to try five former presidents in court has crystallized López Obrador's effort to play a dominant role before the judiciary.
The political influence of the Mexican president over the Supreme Court has been slow cooking in the last two years, through his composition - López Obrador has appointed three of his 11 ministers - and the dialogue he has maintained, through gestures, with them .
The debate on the trial of the former presidents is as political as it is radioactive and the same discussion that has been in the streets - about its relevance - has reached the Court, a place usually considered the Olympus of Justice and that historically has separated passions policies of the arguments based, always, on the Constitution.
Minister Luis María Aguilar wrote a project in which he explained the unconstitutionality of the consultation considering that the Mexican Government can undertake an investigation against any of the former presidents without the need to submit it to consultation and, in addition, has suggested that two elements would be altered important: due process and the equality of all citizens before the law.
The six ministers who voted to consider the consultation constitutional were inclined to look at the right of citizens to have an opinion on the country's affairs, leaving Aguilar's arguments aside.
"The decision of the Court is a strong and dangerous message, it seems that the popular will, embodied in the president, is above any law," explains Juan Jesús Garza Onofre, researcher at the UNAM Institute of Legal Research.
"The Court is not an organ that has to be tied to popular wills, but to the mandate of the Constitution," he adds.
Among the ministers, the political arguments surrounding the consultation had more weight than the list developed by Aguilar - which he called a concert of unconstitutionalities - in his presentation.
What was unusual was not only the vote, but also the decision of Minister Arturo Zaldívar, as president of the Court, to be the first to speak in this Thursday's session.
"We cannot close the doors to public opinion for fear of a catastrophic scenario of criminal populism," he said and thus tipped the balance from the start.
Zaldívar usually leaves his turn towards the end and his vote is considered weighty as the one that can be decisive when the issues being discussed divide the ministers equally.
Although the National Palace has insisted on the independence of the president of the Supreme Court, several political actors have pointed out to this newspaper the closeness of Zaldívar with the legal adviser of the presidency, Julio Scherer.
Zaldívar's stance has also been puzzling because of his track record: In 2014, he voted against the popular consultation on energy reform.
The scenario has changed significantly since that day when 10 ministers were clear that the constitutional reform could not be put to popular consultation due to its subject matter rather than because it was a consultation.
Four years later, López Obrador became president and began a silent march to renew the judiciary to, according to him, cleanse it of corruption.
But the most decisive moment of his influence in the Supreme Court was accepting the resignation of Minister Eduardo Medina Mora for "serious causes" that were never officially made public, but which pointed to an investigation by the Financial Investigation Unit (UIF) of his Government and that to date has not been publicly known, nor has it had legal consequences.
The green light for López Obrador's popular consultation - the first that the country will officially celebrate since the integration of the right to a plebiscite in the Constitution in 2014 - also opens an imminent electoral front.
“Unlike other popular exercises ordered by himself [López Obrador], in this case, he wants to use the constitutional mechanisms provided in our legal order for such purposes.
This, I suppose, because of the connection that it intends to give it with the intermediate elections, ”wrote former Minister José Ramón Cossío a month ago in the pages of this newspaper.
López Obrador avoided legal proceedings when he consulted the cancellation of the Mexico City airport and the construction of the Mayan Train.
Both plebiscites were made with improvised methods and without legal validity, but with results always favorable to the opinions of the president.
Now, the National Electoral Institute (INE) will have to undertake the organization of the consultation in an environment of harsh budget cuts and economic crisis, at the same time as it assembles the development of the elections next July. The conversation in Mexico during the election year will not only be about politicians seeking public office, but also about López Obrador. “The effects of this consultation are redundant. He is a cheater and shows that López Obrador is the one who enters the electoral game, ”says Garza Onofre.