MEXICO CITY -- President Ernesto Zedillo has launched a sweeping overhaul of Mexico's notoriously corrupt justice system, his first major move since taking office last week.


In a nationwide television address late Monday, Zedillo proposed unprecedented measures to make courts more independent, give citizens new ways of judicial recourse and to fight crime.


"I am committed to leading an effort to strengthen Mexico as a nation of law," said Zedillo, who began a six-year term last Thursday. He was submitting the reform package to Congress on Tuesday. Both houses of the legislature must approve the reforms.


Zedillo's proposals included:


?cutting the Supreme Court from 26 members to 11, limiting terms to 15 years and introducing open Senate confirmation hearings for appointees;


?creating a special council that would review nominated judges and magistrates nationwide to ensure highest professional standards;


?banning retired governors, cabinet ministers and other political appointees from switching to the high court immediately after leaving office;


?allowing citizens to complain to a special prosecutor's office when public prosecutors are not doing their job, whether through negligence or corruption. People have long complained that suspects are often tortured or pressured into confessing, sometimes to nonexistent crimes.


Zedillo had entered the presidential campaign only after Luis Donaldo Colosio, the initial candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, was assassinated March 23. On Sept. 28, party secretary-general Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu was gunned down.