At the outset of the colloquium, Mr. Zaoug Mohamed, Head of the Committee on Ethics and the Promotion of Judges’ Independence of the Supreme Council of the Judicial Power, said that the world witnessed in recent decades a general orientation toward regularization of ethics in several public and private fields. He proceeded by noting that Article 106 of the Organic Law of the Council stipulates that the Council drafts and ratifies a Code of Deontology, which it has just released and currently adopts.

Mr. Zaoug defines ethics as a set of rules conventionally adopted and adhered to in order to create a sound path in a specific occupation. He stressed that the Code of Judicial Deontology addresses judges; however, it also, implicitly, primarily speaks to litigants who must know the limits that curtail the degree to which judges are allowed to practice and perform their professional duties.

The speaker underlined that the legislator of the Code of Judicial Deontology placed two essential means to follow up with its implementation. The first one is the Committee on Judicial Ethics and the Promotion of Judges’ Independence of the Supreme Council of the Judicial Power. The said Committee aims at disseminating the Code across the country and ensuring communication about it with jurisdictions that maintain a form of contact with ethics advisors, who serve as the second mean of staying abreast of the Code’s implementation.

For his part, Mr. Chentouf Abdellatif, a member of the Supreme Council of the Judicial Power, highlighted in his intervention that guaranteeing the management of judges’ professional situation refers to the work the Council does as per its competences regarding the management of judges’ status namely, appointment, promotion, reprimand, and retirement. Mr. Chentouf noted that this topic has known several developments throughout the many stages of post-colonial Moroccan history, which culminated in the establishment of an independent judicial power and the Constitution entrusting the Council with the implementation of the guarantees allocated to judges.

Mr. Chentouf added these guarantees exist to protect judges’ independence, stressing that the Council conforms to certain standards in the management of judges’ professional situation in all its stages. These standards are objective rules that are consulted and handled by the Council’s Committees. They are well-detailed in the two Organic Laws (Organic Law on the Supreme Council of the Judicial Power and the Statute for Judges).

For his part, Mr. Elhadri Hassan, Deputy Inspector General of Judicial Affairs, stated that judges’ independence is a state of mental clarity for judges who should be in a sound state of mind when taking decisions or rendering judgments that impact individual and collective freedoms and rights. Hence, judges should be able to take such decisions without fear of or need for a third party. In this sense, no government authority should interfere with the court’s judgment of a case, or take a case away from judges and meddle in, amend, or stop the process of rendering judgments.

Mr. Elhadri noted that the principle of the judiciary’s independence was not established to please judges’ personal desires, but rather to safeguard litigants’ interests. This principle includes all forms of external influence and is fundamental to a fair trial. It is a duty and not a right, nor is it a privilege of the legal profession.

In his intervention as the representative of Ethics Advisors, Mr. Al Montasirbillah Mounir, First President of the Court of Appeals of Rabat, put an emphasis on the moral concepts of the Code of Judicial Deontology, which constitutes a roadmap for the right path of judicial work, and an accurate guide for persistent and successful diligence. Mr. Al Montasirbillah added that the Code has combined objectives with means, and focused on the essence of concepts like independence, neutrality, impartiality, equality, integrity, competence, diligence, gumption, moral courage, reservation, decency, and elegance.

Mr. Al Montasirbillah affirmed that no one denies the role of morals in the intellectual construction of the occupation and any humane work. In this sense, morals lead to the creation of a practical reality where duty and right are a corollary of ethics.

The speaker went on to argue that the roles of ethics advisors are divided into two parts. The first is preventive and aims to raise awareness of the content of the Code. While the second part detects and scrutinizes misconduct. Therefore, ethics advisors must be versed in the Code’s rules, the traditions of the practice, and proper conduct, as well as be able to discern whether or not an act constitutes a breach of the Code.