Approval of the draft criminal procedure code angers public money protectors, amid calls for continued efforts to combat corruption

Agadir24

The Moroccan Association for the Protection of Public Money criticized what it called “the attempt to strip and deprive society of any possibility or means to combat corruption,” against the backdrop of the government council’s approval yesterday, Thursday, of the draft criminal procedure law.

Article 3 of the aforementioned draft law limits the entities authorized to request judicial investigations into public money crimes, as it prevents civil society from filing complaints in this regard.

In this context, the head of the Moroccan Association for the Protection of Public Money, Mohamed Al-Ghloussi, stated that the text of Article 3 of the draft criminal procedure code “not only aims to prevent civil society from playing its role in the field of combating corruption and bribery, but also goes beyond that to stripping society, individuals and groups, of all the legal, procedural and rights tools and capabilities to confront corruption and thieves of public money and demand that responsibility be linked to accountability.”

Al-Ghoulousi confirmed in a post on his Facebook page that the aforementioned article “intensifies and translates the clear will of the trend that benefits from illicit enrichment, the reality of rent-seeking, corruption, and the exploitation of positions of public responsibility, and aims to close the legal and civil field and empty it of its content to end any disturbance, threat, or disruption of the interests of corruption and rent-seeking networks and mafias.”

The same speaker stressed that the same article “undermines the constitution, the United Nations Convention against Corruption, which Morocco has ratified, and Law No. 10-37 on the protection of whistleblowers of corruption crimes,” in addition to the fact that it “restricts and reduces the tasks and role of public prosecutors and the judicial police with regard to confronting violations of the criminal law as stated in the criminal procedure currently in force.”

The same lawyer noted that “the battle to combat corruption, rent-seeking, bribery, linking responsibility to accountability, and improving public life is absolutely inseparable from the battle for democracy,” noting that “this battle does not concern the association alone, but rather concerns all living forces and all sincere wills that believe in another possible Morocco based on the fair distribution of wealth, the separation of powers, and linking responsibility to accountability.”

The same human rights activist warned that “the lobby’s efforts, which benefit from the reality of the marriage of power with money and illicit enrichment, to normalize corruption, rent-seeking and bribery and legitimize this by using all means and mechanisms, including institutional mechanisms (parliament), will be used to defend the spread of corruption, bribery, impunity and the oppression of those who oppose and expose corruption.”

The speaker concluded that this reality imposes on “the living forces and all democrats and honorable people to unite to formulate a struggle program to confront the trend that seeks to undermine the legal and constitutional gains,” noting that the association’s national office will hold a meeting on Tuesday, September 3, to study the details of the issue and take appropriate decisions in this regard.

It is noteworthy that the Government Council approved, yesterday, Thursday, Draft Law 03.23 amending and supplementing the Criminal Procedure Code No. 03.23, which was presented by the Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Wahbi. This draft aims to review Law No. 22.01 relating to criminal procedure, after more than twenty years of its issuance, within the framework of modernizing the national legal system.