Weekly Report - 14 October 2010 (WR-10-41)

One of the least appreciated but most crucial achievements of the government of President Vicente Fox (2000 to 2006) was to enable Mexico's constitutional machinery to function. The big beneficiary of the first non-Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) president since the Revolution was the supreme court. Thanks largely to Fox the supreme court has made a series of profound and illuminating decisions on a range of issues. Now the court is looking for both a new president and a new judge to replace one of its most important members, José de Jesús Gudiño Pelayo, who died suddenly on 19 September while on a trip to London.