Yasmín Esquivel, during her inauguration as Supreme Court minister, in Mexico City, on March 21, 2019.Victoria Valtierra Ruvalcaba (Cuartoscuro)
Senator Germán Martínez Cázares demanded that Congress initiate a political trial against Minister Yasmín Esquivel in order to have her removed from her position as a member of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN).
The non-partisan legislator filed a first complaint on January 19, after the first revelations of academic plagiarism committed by the judge in her undergraduate thesis at UNAM.
After the publication of EL PAÍS of a new case of plagiarism committed by Esquivel, now in his doctoral thesis supported at the Anahuac University, the senator presented an extension of his complaint letter.
Martínez Cázares maintains that the journalistic publication shows that Esquivel does not comply with the honor and good reputation required by the Constitution to hold the position of minister of the Mexican Supreme Court.
"This can not be allowed.
A judge must be clean, he must judge with decency, a judge must have his papers in order to pacify with his sentences, ”said the legislator.
Given that the ministers are appointed by the Senate of the Republic from a shortlist prepared by the President of the Republic, judges can only leave office for serious reasons and have the authorization of the Executive and the Upper House.
As they are public servants with constitutional protection, the Chamber of Deputies must authorize, by majority vote, the initiation of impeachment proceedings against them, in order to withdraw said protection and place the official at the disposal of the authorities. administration, if applicable.
Martínez Cázares, who collaborated with Morena and Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the beginning of the Government —from whom he later distanced himself—, is aware that his initiative has a more symbolic role, aimed at raising political pressure on the case, and that the The feasibility of the proposal going ahead is complicated.
Morena has the majority in the Chamber and López Obrador has shown his support for the minister since the beginning of the controversy.
Esquivel was appointed in 2019 by the president.
In fact, she was the president's favorite to preside over the Mexican high court.
In his complaint addressed to the Subcommittee for Prior Examination of the Lower House, the senator indicated that there is sufficient evidence that "shows repeated acts of lack of probity, honor and respect that seriously damage the good reputation in the public opinion that the public servant was had ", according to his letter.
And it adds: “The permanence of the public servant denounced within the High Court seriously damages the good reputation in the public opinion that the Supreme Court has […] and is detrimental to the fundamental public interests and its good office —particularly that related to the due administration of justice and the enforcement of the Rule of Law—, causing serious damage to the aforementioned institution, which also causes a disruption in its normal functioning.”
“This is already a major scandal, which is already in the public squares, there is already a social repudiation, not only academic, and there is a silent repudiation in the Judiciary, I think that both the Judiciary and the Judiciary can take action on the matter as the Legislative power", Martínez Cázares said in an interview.
“I do see an environment for this to come together.
And second, there is the possibility of appointing an interim or provisional minister, as established by the Constitution”.
The legislator maintains that, if the first disclosure of plagiarism in the degree called into question that Esquivel had the requirement of being a graduate, the second publication of doctoral plagiarism has called into question his good reputation.
“The impeachment generates political pressure, which is what I am looking for so that she resigns, so that she separates herself from the position that she is unduly, unconstitutionally, occupying.
She can't solve a matter of a falsification of a deed to a house, falsification of documents, but neither can she solve other matters, and she is going to solve the electoral reform or the militarization of this country without having her papers in order.
I do not resign myself”, affirms the senator.
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