Mexicans will elect a new judiciary June 1. A look at some of the candidates

MEXICO CITY -- What do an activist searching for missing Mexicans, an attorney who once represented a drug lord and a university professor trying out TikTok have in common?

They are all campaigning for positions in Mexico’s first judicial election on June 1.

More than 2,600 contenders are vying for 881 positions from Mexico’s Supreme Court down to district courts across the country. In 2027, another election is planned to elect 800 more judicial positions.

Those on the June 1 ballots won a lottery after being screened by committees made up of people from the three branches of government. In order to qualify, they had to have a law degree, at least five years of professional practice, write an essay and collect letters of recommendation from friends and colleagues.

Foreign governments, including the United States, and civil society organizations in Mexico criticized the change, warning that it would lead to a politicization of the judiciary and weaken its independence.

Electing judges was former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s way to root out corruption. Make them accountable to the people, he said. The contentious reform’s passage was among the last major acts of his presidency last September.

Here are some of the candidates:

Age: 41

What’s she known for? She is among the hundreds of Mexicans searching for a missing relative, in her case a brother who disappeared in 2014.

Candidate for: District judge in the western state of Sinaloa.

Quiroa’s experience has been different to most other candidates' in that she’s more accustomed to being on the victims’ side.

After her brother disappeared in the northern border state of Tamaulipas, Quiroa began searching and eventually founded a collective called “March 10” for the day he vanished.

She quickly realized there was little legal help available to help searchers like herself, so she left her engineering career and began to study law while continuing her search.

Quiroa gained notoriety a couple years ago when she proposed criminal groups consider a peace treaty to make it safer to search for the missing and she began selling a “Searcher Barbie” to raise money for her group’s activities.

Late last year, she decided to return to her native Sinaloa state to compete to be a judge.

Quiroa knows the risks of being a judge in the violent state, home to a powerful cartel of the same name, but she said that there need to be more judges who empathize with those searching for missing loved ones.

“If I become a judge, I’m not going to send legal documents and wait for authorities to answer when they feel like it,” Quiroa said. “I’m going to go out and look for the missing people.”

Age: 40

What’s he known for? He went viral as “Justice Pork Rinds.”

Candidate for: Supreme Court.

Until the campaign started, Guerrero wasn’t well-known outside of Mexico’s National Autonomous University, where he has taught classes for more than a decade. He had also led Mexico City’s public records agency and worked at the capital’s electoral court.

But it was a homemade TikTok video that took off and launched Guerrero’s campaign. In it, a student hands him a platter of a typical pork rind dish. Playing on the turn of phrase, he says he’s “more prepared than a pork rind” to be a Supreme Court justice, before rolling into his qualifications.

Some grumps accused him of turning the race into a circus, but Guerrero said that his attempt at humor was far less harmful than having a corrupt justice on the highest court.

“You have to be colloquial sometimes in your use of language,” he said, accepting that he has tried to run a “disruptive” campaign.

If elected, Guerrero said that he would push to have the court hold hearings around Mexico to have more contact with people.

Age: 51

What’s she known for? She represented drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2016.

Candidate for: Criminal court judge in northern state of Chihuahua.

Nine years ago, Silvia Delgado García was a member of Sinaloa cartel leader Guzmán’s legal team when he was temporarily held in a prison in Ciudad Juarez before being extradited to the United States. He was eventually tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison in the U.S.

She’s still marked by the case.

Some critics of electing judges, and a human rights litigation group called Defensorxs, have labeled Delgado García “high risk,” because “she defends alleged drug traffickers.”

The group has also identified 17 other candidates that way for being prosecuted, being members of investigated organizations, for alleged human rights violations and deals with criminal groups.

“Everyone has a right to an effective defense,” Delgado García said about her decision to represent Guzmán.

She notes that she only helped at one hearing where the power went out, and her job was to visit him in the Ciudad Juarez prison where he was being held.

“If they give me a client of that magnitude, in terms of resume that’s going to help me,” she said.

As a candidate, she highlights that she has been a litigator for 18 years and has a passion for criminal law.

“I am a citizen who believes in the law, and I am extremely prepared to carry out the job and I aim to be impartial in the decisions I hand down."

Age: 30

What’s he known for? He’s a young lawyer at the Supreme Court who spends his free time campaigning in Mexico City’s central square.

Candidate for: An administrative judge for two of Mexico City’s boroughs.

Every afternoon, Monday to Thursday, Tapia Maltos finishes work at Mexico's Supreme Court where he has worked for 11 years and walks next door to Mexico City's sprawling central square. There, he sets up a small stand from which he hangs three papers on which he has handwritten his name, the position he seeks, his social platform handle and his ID number for the ballot.

Even though he frequently goes unnoticed by the multitude of street vendors, tourists and workers crossing the square each day, Tapia Maltos dressed in white shirt, tie and dark slacks, occasionally draws the attention of those curious enough to stop and read his papers. Some then ask how they can vote.

The simplicity of his campaign is its most noteworthy characteristic.

“I'm not trying to make a big production with videos, no dancing or anything like that ... Because what I'm trying to do is get to know people in an appropriate way.”

He has worked for years behind the scenes inside the Supreme Court in preparing decisions. Now, thanks to the new judicial election, he says that he has found a way to achieve his dream of being a judge and bring new blood to a judiciary long criticized as corrupt.

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