Norma Lucía Piña Hernández has become this Monday the first woman to occupy the presidency of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in its more than 200 years of history
The judge Norma Lucía Piña Hernández has become this Monday the first woman to hold the presidency of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in its more than 200 years of history.
Piña has obtained six votes in favor and five negatives in the third round of voting and thus prevails in the process over his rival, Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena to preside over the court between 2023 and 2026, reports the Mexican newspaper ‘La Jornada’.
The process has been marred by accusations of plagiarism in his undergraduate thesis of one of the candidates, Yasmín Esquivel Mossa.
The first woman of the SCJN took office in 1961, María Cristina Salmorán de Tamayo. Since then there have been 14 women in the highest Mexican judicial body. There are currently four female judges and seven judges on the court.
The opposition National Action Party (PAN) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) have celebrated Piña’s election and stressed that his appointment guarantees the independence of the highest court.
The president of the PAN, Marko Cortés, has indicated that “It is no secret to anyone that in recent years the highest court and the judiciary have experienced permanent harassment from the president” Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “We trust that the new presidency of the Court will not give in to the pressures, which, without a doubt, will not be few,” he pointed out.
Cortés has thus requested “a counterweight against the Executive” that “act with opportunity to avoid any type of violation of rights and guarantees” against “authoritarianism”.
The PRD parliamentary spokesman, Luis Espinosa, has indicated that “the pressures of the government” did not work in this Monday’s election. “The autonomy of the institutions must be defended against authoritarian claims,” he added.