On Monday, 9 judges, who are members of the Executive Office of the Moroccan Judges Club, published data on their properties, and others showing their monthly income, real estate and movable funds, on the club’s official website..
The statements published on the website, including the statement of the club’s president, Abdul Razzaq Al-Jabari, showed that “they do not have wealth, but are burdened with bank loans, and they do not have liberated property, but most of it is registered equally with the wife, while some of them have no property.”.
“Raising the level of credibility”
In this regard, Jabbari said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”: “This public declaration of property, which was decided by the Executive Office of the Moroccan Judges Club, comes within the framework of implementing the recommendation of its National Council, a recommendation issued by it in 2012, in order to achieve two goals.”.
“The first goal is related to supporting the value of transparency in the judicial associative work, which requires such kind of initiatives and procedures that contribute to raising the level of credibility required in it, while the second goal is to contribute to increasing the indicators of integrity in the judicial assemblies, as a means of supporting the efforts made in The way to increase confidence in the judiciary, in implementation of the royal will,” according to Al-Jabari.
And the club president continued: “The law obliges judges to declare their property, through a secret administrative procedure, but it does not prevent them from announcing their personal data about it, which are data covered by legal protection unless the person concerned with it waives his right to this protection, which is what the Executive Office of the Judges Club has done. Morocco, as its members outweighed the support of the values of transparency and integrity over the protection of their personal data..
Support transparency and integrity
With regard to the participation of other judges in the process of declaring property, the Moroccan Judges Club stated, in a statement that “Sky News Arabia” has seen a copy, that these initiatives come “in support of the values of transparency and integrity, and in implementation of the recommendation of the club’s National Council, which aims to publicly declare property and debts from by all members of his executive office.
He continued, “The initiative also comes in implementation of the decision of the club’s national office, issued on July 21, 2022, to activate this procedure.”
brave move
Commenting on this initiative, the head of the Moroccan Forum for Democracy and Human Rights, Jawad al-Khani, said in a statement to the “Sky News Arabia” website, that the judges’ public declaration of their properties is an “initiative and a brave step.”
Al-Khani considered that this step “enhances transparency and integrity, and gives the lesson that there are honest judges who only own their wages, and even property such as real estate, for example, is often equal to the wife.”.
The jurist stressed that the initiative “will have a positive impact, not only inside the country, but even outside it, by demonstrating the extent of the moral and impartial sense of Moroccan judges, while waiting for other judges to join.”.
It is noteworthy that “Chapter 16 of the Basic Law of Judges in Morocco states that judges must declare their property within a maximum period of 3 months that follows the date of their appointment to the judiciary, with the total of their income-generating activities, or the property they own, owned or managed by their minor children, as well as The income they received in any capacity during the year preceding the year in which they were appointed, and the property declaration is renewed every 3 years in February.
With regard to the minimum value of movable property to be declared, it is set at 300,000 dirhams ($30,000) for each category of movable property, at the date of its acquisition through purchase or ownership through inheritance..
It is noteworthy that as soon as members of the Moroccan Judges Club published data on their properties, social media pioneers interacted with the initiative, and it was praised by human rights activists, who expressed their “hope that this step will be circulated to all officials in the justice sector, parliament and the government.”
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