About 1,000 Moroccan judges held an unprecedented sit-in on Saturday in front of the Moroccan Supreme Court, calling for greater independence for the judiciary.
The rare demonstration was organized by the Judges’ Club, a group formed in August last year to push for judicial reform. The group has been officially banned, but is tolerated.
Morocco’s courts have historically been weak and under the control of the king and his Justice Ministry, which determines judges’ salaries and appointments so that they will often rule as instructed for the sake of their careers.
Photo: AFP
“We have no protection, no rights, we have a miserable salary, we work in catastrophic conditions,” said Nazik Bekkal, a judge from Sidi Kassem in northern Morocco, at the demonstration. “Above all we are not autonomous, very simply, and that’s what is most important, it’s the autonomy, the independence of the judiciary, that’s what we really are looking for.”
Club founder Yassine Mkhelli, a judge from Taounate in northern Morocco, said that more than 2,200 judges — about two-thirds of the country’s total — have signed their petition calling for reforms.
In May, judges across the country wore red armbands to protest official interference in the judiciary in another action by the club.
Morocco’s new constitution passed last year does give the judicial branch greater powers and independence, but it has yet to be implemented.
Justice is one of the most sensitive issues in this tourist-friendly North African country of 32 million, where there is widespread distrust of a court system that most Moroccans believe serves the highest bidder.
Critics say verdicts in civil trials can be bought for just US$5,000, while a telephone call from a high official is enough to seal a guilty verdict in the case of terrorism or political trials.
The Islamist Justice and Development Party that won last year’s elections made battling corruption and creating a truly independent judiciary a main plank of its campaign, but judges say little has changed.
“This issue concerns all the Moroccan people who deserve a truly independent judiciary,” vice president of the club and Supreme Court judge Mohammed Anbar said. “We are here, simply put, for the independence of the justice system. We want a justice system which is effective, has integrity, is strong and is independent.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing