In recent years, Latin America has been the scene of various judicial reforms that, under the guise of transforming or strengthening justice systems, have led to the mass dismissal of justice operators. These processes alter the institutional design of the systems, lower retirement ages, establish parallel systems without secure of tenure, or radically change the way judges are selected. These massive removals are different to those of entire high courts, nor to a covert disciplinary mechanism aimed at removing a specific group of judges; rather, we are referring to dismissals resulting from the implementation of constitutional or legal reforms whose stated objective is the restructuring, redesign, or reform of the justice system as a means to resolve structural problems or endemic phenomena, such as judicial corruption.
This type of reform, which is becoming increasingly common in Latin America, does not have a clear response under international human rights law, because its standards have been conceived as a limit on the State’s disciplinary powers1. But can or should they also be applied to limit its reforming powers? In this article, we offer an initial approach to this problem, based on four considerations that allow us to examine and address the phenomenon.
Different Forms of Dismissal in the History of Latin American Justice
As a starting point, let us examine the forms that mass removals of judges have taken in Latin America. One of the earliest precedents for this type of situation is the mass removal of judges carried out in 1992 following the “self-coup” orchestrated by Alberto Fujimori’s government in Peru.2 In this context, the country’s Constitution was formally suspended, and among other measures, the dismissal of high court justices was ordered, as well as the removal of more than 134 appellate judges, trial court judges, prosecutors and senior prosecutors.
There are other cases in which massive removals have occurred through the erosion of judicial secure of tenure. In such cases, this safeguard was widely removed, although in practice many of the judges continued to serve on a temporary basis. The removals, therefore, did not occur at a specific moment but were instead a process that unfolded over time. In Bolivia, following the adoption of a new Constitution in 2009 promoted by the government of President Evo Morales, laws were enacted declaring that judicial positions were “temporary,” and converted judges who were already incumbents into provisional judges. The removal took place gradually, as the Judicial Council began holding competitive exams to fill the positions these judges had held, first as tenured judges and then as provisional ones. These reforms contributed “to gradually undermining the stability of judicial office and have weakened the guarantee of a judicial career.”3
More recent examples of massive removals of judges include the constitutional reform of the justice system passed in Mexico in 2024, which mandated the dismissal of all judges and magistrates in the country, at both the federal and state levels, to be replaced by individuals elected by popular vote4; or the review and cancellation of more than 180 appointments of judges and justice officials made by the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) in Honduras in April 2026.
The (Insufficient) Response of International Law
International human rights law has developed standards to ensure that removing justice operators does not undermine the guarantees that make up judicial independence. These standards give judges and prosecutors heightened protection to prevent external or internal actors—including disciplinary authorities—from improperly interfering with how they perform their duties.
These “enhanced safeguards”—in the terms used by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR)—modulate and give specific content to some of the classic safeguards that apply to limit the state’s disciplinary authority. In other words, they provide judges with greater protection than other types of state officials, due to the role they play in a democratic system.5
One such guarantee is the secure of tenure, which has been regarded—in the words of the Inter-American Court in the case of López Lone et al. v. Honduras6—as a genuine right of judges that limits the State’s power to impose sanctions. From this perspective, when a judge is arbitrarily removed from office as a result of a sanction—whether explicit or covert— the guarantee is triggered, giving rise to the State’s international responsibility and the obligation to provide redress to the removed judge. But what happens if that removal from office is not the result of a sanction? And furthermore, what happens when the act leading to the removal affects judges en masse?
The response of international law seems insufficient to address the phenomenon, for several reasons. First, because it overlooks the systemic impact of massive removal and the way it undermines judicial independence, not only of each of the individuals removed but of the justice system as a whole. Inter-American standards consider irremovability to be a right of judges, and therefore subjective and individual; and even if the impact can be considered the sum of the individual impacts on the judges, existing standards remain insufficient to address and restore, through reparatory measures, situations whose reversal could prove just as traumatic as the violation itself.
Second, because the standards function as limits on the power to impose sanctions and may be useful even when the arbitrary sanction in question affects a determinable and group of people. But it remains unclear to what extent they can limit the power to introduce structural reforms to the justice system, and when the line of arbitrariness is crossed.
Third, even though the power to reform may be considered, in certain cases, legitimate and even necessary to restore the democratic course or even judicial independence itself, the fact is that the mass removal of a significant number of judges constitutes major surgery for the justice system and creates opportunities and risks of institutional capture—whether intended or not—because the mass dismissal of judges can open the door for new actors to enter the judiciary.
Given these limitations, we propose some preliminary considerations for analyzing this phenomenon and its possible responses under international law, including its potential gaps and methodological needs.
First consideration: the definition of a “mass removal”
A first consideration concerns the mass nature of the removal and, in light of this, the need for a useful ad operative criterion to apply such a classification. Beyond an exact or approximate number of judges, what is relevant in a mass removal is the systemic impact the measure has on the judiciary.
To this end, one element to consider is the levels, positions, and categories to which the dismissed individuals belong, as well as the point in time at which we assess whether the removal has occurred. As Latin American experience shows, the effects of the removal have unfolded at a specific moment (for example, the approval of a constitutional amendment that expressly provides for the dismissal) or over a period of time, which typically begins with the erosion of their conditions of service (eliminating their job security), to force or encourage their departure, even on a voluntary basis.
Second consideration: Does the mass removal serve punitive purposes?
Once the mass nature of the removal has been established, it is necessary to distinguish it from measures adopted with the purpose—whether stated or not—of punishing judges. This is a delicate task, because many reforms may appear technical or neutral, but their true purpose is not to promote reforms or restructure the judiciary but rather to carry out a selective purge of judges for the purposes of control or subjugation. Several elements can be considered for this analysis:
- Messaging and political context: Is the reform taking place in a context of confrontation between political powers and the justice system? Could the reform be considered a response to specific decisions in recent cases that affected government interests? Have verbal attacks been documented, or has there been a push by high-ranking government officials to promote a hostile or stigmatizing narrative toward specific judges or to discredit the justice system? Another key prior factor could be a documented deterioration of the rule of law in the country.
- Implementation: What is the stated justification for the reform that is leading to the mass removal? Was an assessment conducted of the problem the reform seeks to address, and is this assessment publicly available? Was a public consultation held with the participation of judges, and were various alternative solutions to the problem evaluated? Does the stated justification align with the actual effects of the reform? What was the legal basis or justification for the reform (under domestic law)?
- Consequences or subsequent effects: Who is replacing the dismissed judges? Perhaps it is not just a matter of who is leaving, but of who is replacing them—are these individuals selected based on some objective mechanism? Are they people close to political powers? In addition, it is important to evaluate the procedural safeguards for those removed: do they have the opportunity to challenge the decision or to reapply for a judicial position?
Third consideration: Analysis of purpose
Once it has been established that the reform that led to the removal did not have a punitive objective, it would be appropriate, in our opinion, to analyze whether it can be considered a legitimate measure in a democratic society. There is no doubt that the mass removal of judges individually undermines the guarantee of tenure—and, with it, their independence—and seriously weakens institutional integrity; however, in certain cases of profound democratic deterioration, it could even be a necessary measure to restore the independence of the judiciary.
Some international documents have recognized the possibility of relaxing the international standards that protect secure of tenure in extremely exceptional and justified situations. For example, paragraph 30 of the Updated Set of principles for the protection and promotion of human rights through action to combat impunity, adopted by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2005, established that it is possible to restrict this principle in circumstances where judges have been appointed unlawfully or have obtained their judicial powers through an act of allegiance to an authoritarian regime. Under this approach, in certain circumstances related to democratic transition processes, the mass removal of judges could be justified as necessary to address the “impunity gap” or to restore judicial independence, while respecting minimum due process guarantees.
Fourth consideration: Means analysis
Finally, once the legitimacy of the purpose has been established, we must analyze mass removal from a relational perspective, testing whether the measure is appropriate, necessary, and proportionate to achieve the established purpose, whatever it may be. Consider, for example, the purpose of eliminating judicial corruption. Undoubtedly, a mass removal is a measure that could remove corrupt judges from the system; however, among the group of dismissed individuals, the measure does not pass a necessity test, given that there are other alternatives less harmful to judicial independence, secure of tenure, and other human rights of justice operators, and equally effective in combating corruption, such as, for example, establishing more robust internal control mechanisms.
Finally, it must be weighed whether the measure disproportionately undermines the secure of tenure of judges and the independence of the justice system, compared to the benefits that maintaining it would bring in achieving its objectives. Does access to justice increase, or does impunity decrease, as a result of mass removal, to such an extent as to justify the serious impact on these values? Given the nearly irreversible effects that the mass removal may generate, the weight of these reasons must be considerably greater to be considered a strong justification for it.
These four considerations constitute an initial basis for reflecting on the possible need to relax or rethink existing standards, or to analyze this phenomenon using the diversity of standards that international law currently provides. However, they represent only a starting point for a much more exhaustive legal analysis that is still pending. The phenomenon of mass removal of justice operators deserves special attention, both because of the frequency with which it is occurring in Latin America and because of the grave impacts it can have on the lives of justice operators, as well as its potential implications for judicial independence at the institutional level.
As we have seen, while international human rights law offers solid and well-established standards regarding the secure of tenure, the documented cases suggest that these standards may face limitations in the context of profound reforms or democratic transitions. Therefore, it is necessary to rethink the application of these standards in light of criteria that allow for distinguishing between legitimate measures and co-optation practices, ensuring that any process of restructuring the judicial system is carried out with sufficient safeguards to protect both justice operators and the integrity of the judicial system as a whole. The announcement of an upcoming thematic report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, made in March 2026 during its 195th session, could be a good opportunity for this.
1 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of Apitz Barbera et al. (“First Court of Administrative Litigation”) v. Venezuela. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment. Series C, No. 182.
2 International Commission of Jurists, Por el Imperio del Derecho, The Journal, No. 48, June 1992, pp. 10–11.
3 Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) – Bolivia, Final Report on the Acts of Violence and Human Rights Violations Occurring Between September 1 and December 31, 2019. p. 259. July 2021.
4 CLACSO, Strengthening Democracy: Debates on Judicial Reform in Mexico, p. 14. December 2025.
5 Indacochea, Ursula. “International Human Rights Standards Relevant to the Exercise of Disciplinary Authority by the National Board of Justice of Peru,” in National Board of Justice: Strengthening Its Role in Democracy. P. 195. May 2025.
6 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of López Lone et al. v. Honduras, Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment. Series C, No. 302, para. 193.
Úrsula Indacochea is the Judicial Independence Program Director at DPLF. Rachel Steinig is J.D. Candidate at NYU School of Law ’26, focused on international human rights law. Legal intern in the Judicial Independence Program at DPLF.