Norma Lucía Piña Hernández

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Piña and the second or maternal family name is Hernández.

Norma Lucía Piña Hernández (born 29 July 1960) is a Mexican lawyer, educator, and President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation from 2023 to 2024, being the first woman ever to hold that position. She was a member of the Supreme Court since 1 December 2015, replacing Olga Sánchez Cordero.

Norma Lucía Piña Hernández
Piña in 2016
President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation
In office 2 January 2023 – 30 October 2024
Preceded by	Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea
Succeeded by	Pending
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation
Incumbent
Assumed office 10 December 2015
Nominated by	Enrique Peña Nieto
Appointed by	Senate of the Republic
Preceded by	Olga Sánchez Cordero
Personal details
Born	Norma Lucía Piña Hernández (1960-07-29) 29 July 1960 Mexico City, Mexico
Education	Benemérita Escuela Nacional de Maestros (BEd) National Autonomous University of Mexico (LLB, SJD)

Education

Piña became a professor of primary-education pedagogy in 1978 at the Benemérita Escuela Nacional de Maestros, at Mexico City. She became a lawyer at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1984. She became a specialist in social psychology and communication at the National Institute of Communication Science, in Madrid in 1978, tuition paid by the Secretary of Public Education. Piña became a specialist in constitutional and administrative law at the postgraduate level at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1986.

She earned her doctorate in law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1986, becoming a judicial specialist at the Institute of Judicial Specialization of the Supreme Court of Justice in 1989. Piña is a criminal law specialist, with a certificate from the Panamerican University in Mexico City in 1997. She took courses on human rights at the Institute of the Federal Judiciary, and also she specializes in judicial argumentation, earning a certificate at the post-graduate division at the University of Alicante in Spain, on 2010.

Career

Prior being a Supreme Court justice, Piña worked at the Manuel M. Acosta Pedogeological Experimentation Elementary School at the Meritorious National School of Teachers. She worked at the Institute of Judicial Investigations at the National Autonomous University, and as a legal opinion drafter for the Third Collegiate Administrative Court for the First Circuit from 1988 to 1992. She worked as a clerk for the Supreme Court of Justice from 1992 to 1998, and she was a judge for the third district of the State of Morelos from 1998 to 2000. Piña worked as a judge of Federal District for the Administrative Courts in 2000. She was an opposition Circuit Magistrate at September 2000. She was also a Magistrate for the Administrative Court. She was a First Circuit Magistrate for the Twentieth Court for the Administrative Courts. Today, she is a Supreme Court justice, as a president of the Primera Sala (First Hall).

Designation as a Supreme Court justice

After two failed attempts to reach the highest rank in Mexican Judiciary, Piña became the eleventh woman to reach the position. She came to the Supreme Court of Justice to replace Olga Sánchez Cordero. She appeared in front of the Mexican Senate showing a formalist profile regarding her interpretation of philosophy, saying that there are no absolute values in law.

Piña was appointed as a justice after her appearance on the Senate on 24 November 2015, after the two previous failed attempts, after being part of the judiciary for 27 years. On 28 September 2016, Piña was chosen by her colleagues as the president of the Primera Sala (First Hall) after the justices voted unanimously. She substituted the justice Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena, who was in charge to review the criminal and civil jurisprudence cases. She is president from 1 October 2016, to 30 September 2018.