AMLO Targets Salaries of Mexico’s Supreme Court Judges

(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s new President described the salaries of the nation’s Supreme Court judges’ as an "injustice" on Tuesday after they rebuffed his party’s attempt to lower them. A look at the numbers suggests that the leftist leader may have a point.

Speaking at his daily news conference on Tuesday morning, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lambasted what he claimed was a 600,000 peso ($29,731) monthly income. While that may overstate the amount because it includes some benefits like insurance, a more conservative estimate puts their annual pre-tax pay at about $269,000. That’s roughly equal to the $267,000 salary for U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and more than the $255,300 for the eight Associate Justices.

Mexico’s per capita gross domestic product is less than $9,000 a year, one sixth that of the U.S., and it’s routine for workers in Mexico to earn a fraction of those in America for the same job, in part because Mexico’s cost of living is far lower. Mexico’s lower salaries in the automotive industry, for instance, were a key point of contention during this year’s talks to overhaul the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

“We can’t have a rich government and poor people,” Lopez Obrador, known by the initials AMLO, said.

Mexico’s poverty rate remains around early-1990s levels -- about half the population, encompassing a permanent class of the underemployed. Lopez Obrador’s championing of the poor was one factor that led to his landslide election in July.

In a statement the Supreme Court rejected Lopez Obrador’s assertion that it’s members earn 600,000 pesos per month.

AMLO’s salary fixation goes beyond the remuneration of the 11-member Supreme Court. The leftist firebrand who took office on Dec. 1 plans to cut his own after-tax salary to 108,000 pesos a month and cap those of the nation’s highest-earning public servants at the same level. He also wants to raise wages for those at lower levels. Such changes are expected to be included in the budget proposal that he must send Congress before Sunday.

Mexico’s Congress, where Lopez Obrador’s coalition has a majority, in September passed a law capping public salaries. The Supreme Court ruled this month that the law violates the constitution and can’t apply to the court, nor to autonomous bodies like the central bank and electoral institute, drawing criticism from some members of Lopez Obrador’s party.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Martin in Mexico City at emartin21@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vivianne Rodrigues at vrodrigues3@bloomberg.net, Bruce Douglas

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