The General Council of Mexican Lawyers (CGAM), a body composed of bar associations, considered that Minister Yasmín Esquivel Mossa should resign from her position in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), after the UNAM confirmed that she plagiarized her bachelor’s thesis.
For the CGAM, the permanence of Esquivel in office “seriously affects the prestige” of the country’s highest court and, therefore, “is ethically unsustainable.”
The pronouncement of the council, which is made up of organizations such as the Mexican Bar Association and the Mexican Bar Association, comes a day after the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES), Aragon campus, concluded that Esquivel plagiarized her professional thesis, with which she obtained a degree in Law.
The rector of the UNAM, Enrique Graue, referred to the fact, which he considered regrettable, although he said that the university has no powers to invalidate Esquivel’s title. Now, an eventual sanction is in the hands of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP).
Read: Why can’t UNAM invalidate Yasmin’s title after plagiarism? This is what its regulation says.
Faced with this situation, the CGAM considered that, “regardless of the legal implications and the procedures that must be followed, the permanence of C. Esquivel Mossa as minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation seriously affects the prestige of our high court and, therefore, is ethically unsustainable.”
“Out of respect for Mexican society, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and the rule of law, it is estimated that Minister Esquivel Mossa should resign under the terms of Article 98, third paragraph of the Political Constitution,” he concluded.
Joint pronouncement of the Mexican organized lawyer, on the resolution of the UNAM, relative to the thesis of the minister Yasmín Esquivel Mossa. pic.twitter.com/4C3v3rKj8P
— Bar Association (@INCAM_Abogados) January 12, 2023
So far, neither Minister Esquivel nor the Court have ruled on this appeal.
Esquivel’s plagiarism was revealed in December by writer Guillermo Sheridan, through an article published on the Latinus news site. Since then, Esquivel has denied plagiarizing his thesis and even accused another former UNAM student, Edgar Ulises Báez, of having copied his degree work.
Read: “What else are they going to invent?”, responds Minister Yasmín Esquivel to accusation of plagiarism; Pages of his thesis had already been published
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