Work stoppage in Mexico City courts: now trials are taking longer.

MEXICO CITY ( Proceso ).– During June, nearly 100,000 users who daily went to the different offices of the Judicial Branch of Mexico City (PJCDMX) have faced delays in their civil, family, criminal and labor matters, due to the strike initiated by the institution's workers.

Since May 28, PJCDMX workers have closed the institution's facilities to demand a salary increase, changes to the computer equipment they work with daily, improvements to the court's buildings and furnishings, the hiring of more staff to ease the growing workload, and an end to the workplace harassment they claim judges and magistrates inflict on their subordinates.

This scenario has led the local Judicial Council to issue daily agreements suspending previously established judicial deadlines and timeframes in the thousands of trials before the court.

Likewise, only urgent procedures are being processed, which include requests for alimony and provisional measures in cases of domestic violence, issuance of arrest warrants, assessment of the legality of arrests and resolution of the legal status of defendants, as well as decisions on the release of persons subject to criminal proceedings or convicted persons.

The remaining procedures—expert reports on various matters, in lawsuits where the custody of adolescent children is in dispute, summonses, admission of divorce lawsuits or applications, ordinary civil proceedings, voluntary jurisdictions, inheritance trials, issuance of judgments in alimony lawsuits, liquidation of marital property, collection of promissory notes, and termination of lease agreements, among others—remain paralyzed.

The strike also occurred amid the judicial backlog that the court has been experiencing since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced all public institutions to close their doors and, specifically the PJCDMX (Mexico City Justice District), to accelerate the digitalization of trials despite the constant budget cuts implemented by the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum, then head of government, a policy that continues to this day with Clara Brugada.

Adding to this crisis is the fact that the National Code of Civil and Family Procedure began to be implemented last September. This led to the dissolution of several written civil and family courts. Their files, still pending, were distributed among the remaining courts, with no financial incentive for the immediate duplication of work for the workers, nor were additional staff assigned to those courts.

This has led to a slow administration of justice in the nation's capital. The computer equipment used by the PJCDMX (Central Judiciary) has not been updated for 10 years. There are even courts where employees have to share a computer, or there is only one scanner to digitize all the documents in the more than 3,000 cases in progress.

• According to reports from the local Judiciary, in the first quarter of 2025, the average duration of a traditional criminal trial was 47 months and 21 days.
• In a criminal trial involving non-serious offenses, the average sentence was 50 months and 17 days.
• For civil trials, the average is eight months and 11 days.
• While for family trials, 10 months and three days
• And for human rights protection trials it is 21 days.
• In oral justice, civil cases lasted an average of five months and four days.
• Family cases, two months and 15 days
• Oral criminal cases without a sentence, four months and 13 days
• In the Civil Judicial Management Unit, the application stage lasts an average of one month and eight days.
• In 2022, the first 10 labor courts were created, which will eventually replace the Local Conciliation and Arbitration Board. In the first quarter of 2025, the average duration of individual labor trials was 14 months and 22 days, and collective labor trials were two months and 16 days.

This means that thousands of users who go to the court every day to resolve these issues have been unable to receive assistance in recent days.

On June 26, at a press conference, Chief Justice Rafael Guerra announced that, according to an internal report prepared a week before the strike, the Court received 844,582 users that week alone, representing an average of 120,654 users per day.

The official also indicated that during the week reported, the court received 252,018 promotions, which could result in an average of 1,080,072 promotions per month that, during the strike, have not been able to be submitted or addressed.

In criminal matters, between 450 and 500 hearings are held daily, while in family matters, there are 300. Trials in both areas address the most sensitive issues for citizens, as they relate to the rights of crime victims, defendants, women to be free from violence, minors to receive alimony, to live with their parents or grandparents, and individuals to receive an inheritance, among others.