Mexico’s Senate approves a contentious judicial overhaul after protesters storm the chamber

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Senate has voted to overhaul the country’s judiciary, clearing the biggest hurdle for a controversial constitutional revision that will make all judges stand for election. Critics fear the changes will politicize the judicial branch and threaten Mexico’s democracy. The vote early Wednesday came after hundreds of protesters pushed their way into the Senate on Tuesday, interrupting the session after it appeared that Morena, the governing party of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had lined up the necessary votes to pass the proposal. The legislation sailed through the lower chamber, where Morena and its allies hold a supermajority, last week. The Senate posed the biggest obstacle and required defections from opposition parties.