The candidate who defended El Chapo is running for an office

As drivers sit on the move near the America Bridge connecting Mexico to the United States, Sylvia Delgado weaving between the cars, giving away leaflets.

“I stand a criminal judge,” she says brightly. “Vote for number 12 for newsletters!”

The happiestly winding up their windows and taking a flyer from it. But in the rather unique elections on Sunday – the first of the two votes with which Mexicans will Choose the entire judicial system of the country by direct voting – Sylvia Delgado is no ordinary candidate.

Obviously absent from the short biography of her pamphlets is the name of her most famous client: she was a defense lawyer of the notorious Lord of Drugs, Joaquin “El Chapo” GuzmanS

Her critics claim that her past protecting the leader of the Sinaloa cartel must disqualify her not to be a judge. It gives this idea a short collapse.

“Why should I? To do my job?” She replies, her hakeles immediately rose with every conflict of interest proposal.

“To protect the individual guarantees of people? To install adequate technical protection for a person? Why should this make me illegitimate?” she asks.

Sylvia Delgado has not been convicted of a crime, has not faced any accusations and is not in the process of investigating – whether they are over their relationships with El Chapo or something else.

But a leading organization for human rights and transparency in Mexico, called Defensorxs, included it in a list of 19 “high -risk candidates” in the election. In addition to Da Delgado, the list includes a candidate for drug trafficking and another allegations in orchestrating violence against journalists.

Defensorxs Director Miguel Alfonso Meza believes that the so -called “high -risk candidates” are a danger to the legitimacy of Mexico’s justice system:

“Someone who has already worked with a cartel is very difficult to get out, even if he was just as a lawyer. It’s not even if she is a good person or a bad person,” says Mesa, referring to Sylvia Delgado.

“Sinaloa Cartel is not just El Chapo GuzmanS It is a company that has criminal and economic interests that are resolved in the justice system. The cartel can squeeze her to show loyalty because she is already their employee. “

Sylvia Delgado apparently hardens with the mention of Defensorxs and Miguel Alfonso Meza.

“It’s completely stupid,” she says, claiming that she challenged them to “dig in the past as much as they like.” In addition, she rejects their main accusation of being paid with drug money and can be compromised if she is elected judge.

“How can you prove this? I received a payment that was the same as any normal monthly payment that was paid to me by lawyers, members of his legal team. I am not his daughter or sister or something else. I am a professional.”

D -Ja Delgado competes for one of more than 7,500 lawsuits for picking up – from local magistrates to all nine Supreme Court judges.

As it was being discussed, judicial reform caused widespread protests by law students and strikes for workers in the legal system. His critics maintain that the election of every judge in Mexico is a politicization of the country’s justice system.

“Of course, this is a political attack (on the judiciary),” says Miguel Alfonso Mesa.

“Former President Anders Manuel Lopez Obrador did not like to have restrictions on the judiciary. When the pressure became too great and the restrictions are too tight, the only solution they found was to remove all judges in the country,” he adds.

This reform was adopted before President Claudia Shainbaum She swore, but she is a firm supporter of this and the polls suggest that there is widespread approval among the electorate.

Proponents say the United States, Switzerland and Bolivia choose many of their judges. But Mexico will become the first country in the world to choose all of them. The markets remain unconvinated as investors are afraid of the ruling party’s perspective to control the presidency, the legislative branch and the judicial system.

Miguel Alfonso Mesa believes that problems will arise from “agreements and negotiations that judges must do with political participants … in order to receive the support they need to win the elections.”

One of the 64 candidates looking for a place in the Supreme Court is Olivia Agire Bonila. Also from Sidad Juarez, her legal experience is in the Human Rights Act and as an activist against gender -based violence in the notorious dangerous border city.

Like all candidates, D -JGire Bonila had to pay for her campaign from her own pocket – candidates are prohibited from accepting public or private funding and forbidden to buy advertising places. As such, she mainly uses social media to push her plan with 6 points from pressing excessive salaries to find the hearing of the Supreme Court before the public.

While she acknowledges criticism of the potential politicization of Mexico’s justice system, Agre Bonila believes that vote is an opportunity to make a meaningful change in the collapse, corrupt and unknown judicial system.

“I think all citizens in Mexico are politicized and we are all part of public life,” she says.

“The difference here is that our” untouchable “legal system – and it was untouchable because it was controlled by the elites, by privilege – for the first time in history it would be voted. It will be democratized through the popular vote. “

Many people in the judiciary have been there through influence and family ties, according to Agre Bonila and lacks the legitimacy of the executive and legislative branches.

“This vote will provide the true independence of the judiciary because it is not elected by the President of the Republic, but elected by Mexico’s people to represent them.”

So far, the arguments for constitutionality and legitimacy, the process and the candidates are bitter and fierce.

Now all eyes turn to the polling stations, especially the turnout and the percentage of abstinence as indicators of the maintenance of Mexicans for the reform.

As for Sylvia Delgado, the woman who defended the most sought after Lord of Drugs in Mexico, she just hopes the people of Sidad Juarez will respect her work enough to allow her to sit in the judgment of other criminals who face her.