The LatinNews Podcast is a fortnightly deep dive into key developments from across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Real insights from the region’s sharpest minds.
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Season 1 | Episode 58
In one of his final acts as president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador pushed through a contentious judicial reform. López Obrador celebrated the overhaul of the judiciary as a necessity and an important legacy of his government.
A primary concern is that the reform weakens judicial independence, reducing checks and balances on the government. There are fears the election process could be open to political influence, reducing the judiciary’s autonomy from government and strengthening the Morena party's dominance. There are also concerns that organized crime groups could interfere in the election of judges, threatening access to justice for victims and further inflating impunity levels.
On The LatinNews Podcast this week, we speak to Julio Ríos-Figueroa, Associate Professor at the Department of Law at ITAM in Mexico City. His research focuses on comparative judicial politics, the rule of law, and empirical legal studies with a focus on the Latin American region.
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In this episode we discuss:
• Judicial reform
• Judicial independence
• Organized crime influence
• Democratic backsliding
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Professor Julio Ríos-Figueroa
Julio Ríos-Figueroa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Law at ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México) in Mexico City. He is a leading scholar in comparative judicial politics, the rule of law, and constitutional design, with a particular focus on Latin America. His work examines the role of courts in democratic governance, judicial independence, and the interaction between legal institutions and political actors. Ríos-Figueroa has published extensively in international journals and is the author of Constitutional Courts as Mediators (Cambridge University Press, 2016). He also contributes regularly to discussions on constitutional reform and democratic backsliding in the region, making him one of Mexico’s most authoritative voices on the intersection of law and politics.
The LatinNews Podcast is hosted by Richard McColl, a foreign correspondent in Colombia. Having first travelled to Colombia in the late 90s, McColl made the move to Bogotá in 2007. He holds a Diploma in Conflict resolution and a PhD in Social and Human Sciences both at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. He has worked as a journalist across Latin America.
Political Analyst, Richard McColl