The Permanent Mission of Morocco to the UN in New York organized an international research seminar on Friday on the theme “Guaranteeing the success of experiences of territorial autonomy: Devolution of legislative powers”.
The seminar was led by eminent experts, researchers and academics from Switzerland, France, Spain, the United States and Mauritius. It was attended by some fifty diplomats, including several ambassadors in New York, senior UN officials and media accredited to the United Nations.
This meeting offered the opportunity to compare the Autonomy Initiative proposed by the Kingdom of Morocco for the Sahara region with other experiences of autonomy in the world, particularly in terms of the devolution of legislative powers in the autonomous regions. . The international experts had the opportunity to share the experiences of the Canary Islands, New Caledonia, Puerto Rico and the Island of Rodrigues.
The seminar was chaired by Marc Finaud, Senior Advisor at the “Geneva Center for Security Policy”. In his opening speech, he recalled the provisions of the Moroccan Initiative for the autonomy of the Sahara region, stressing that “it has been described as serious and credible in more than ten resolutions of the Council of UN security, and endorsed by a growing number of countries”.
He specified that the Moroccan Initiative includes several provisions that guarantee the exercise of legislative power in the Sahara region. In this context, he reviewed the guarantees established in Articles 5, 12, 19, 20, 22 and 24, concluding that “Morocco’s proposal for the Sahara region is generous. It is, moreover, open to negotiation and will be developed and supplemented”.
In his presentation, Dr. Joan-Josep Vallbé, professor of political science at the University of Barcelona, presented the development of the legislative system in the Canary Islands since their granting of the statute of autonomy in 1982, passing through the major reforms experienced by these islands in 1996 and 2018. He stressed that the legislative power of the region belongs to the regional parliament, which exercises the legislative function in full autonomy, without interference from the central government.
Referring to the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, he qualified article 12 as being “too open”, proposing to establish a list of areas of exclusive competences of both the central administration and the region. Furthermore, he welcomed the guarantees offered in Article 19, particularly in terms of the active participation of local populations and the adequate representation of women.
For her part, Dr. Carine David, professor of law at the University of the Antilles, in France, made a comparison between the legislative powers of New Caledonia and those provided for in the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, noting that the primary function of the Congress of New Caledonia is the exercise of legislative power, which materializes in the power granted to the local Assembly to adopt laws.
Stating that the State, being stripped of the powers it transferred to New Caledonia, irreversibly, can no longer intervene in these matters, noting also that gender parity is respected in the neo- New Caledonian, proposing, in this respect, that the Moroccan Initiative provide more details on the reference to “appropriate female representation”.
For his part, Dr. Jorge Farinacci Fernos, professor of law at the University of Puerto Rico, spoke at length regarding the different aspects that mark Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States of America, in the context of its exercise of legislative power over local matters.
He also made a comparative exercise between the constitutional status of Puerto Rico, and that of the different states that make up the United States. Regarding the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, he dwelt on articles 5, 6, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 and 24, which, for him, constitute the most relevant articles. to the exercise of legislative power in the Sahara region.
He called the definition of the “State of Autonomy of the Region”, highlighted in Article 24, as “the very foundation of the Initiative”. In the case of Puerto Rico, several structural limitations impede the exercise of legislative powers, he noted, explaining that the US Congress exercises the power to unilaterally modify its agreement with Puerto Rico or eliminate it altogether.
Finally, Mrs. Marie Valérie Uppiah, head of the law department at the University of Mauritius, presented one of the African examples of the devolution of legislative powers, by addressing the case of the autonomous territory of the island of Rodrigues, which obtained its autonomy from Mauritius in 2002.
In this context, she explained that the status of autonomy allows the Island of Rodrigues to set up its own system of governance. Alongside the three branches of government that exist in Mauritius, Rodrigues Island has set up its own institutions that govern and regulate its administration, including a Regional Assembly with legislative power, commissions that manage the executive, and courts. who are part of the judiciary, she said.
At the same time, she underlined that “the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative is an appropriate solution for the Sahara region”, because “it presents various advantages both for Morocco and for the constituents of the Sahara region”.
She concluded that autonomy will give the Sahara region more powers and capacities to conduct its own internal affairs, since it includes, among others, the legislative, executive and judicial powers, which are the three fundamental powers necessary for the good governance and administration of any state
