Ladies and Gentlemen,

With immense feelings of abundant joy and pride, I am pleased to be with you here today, in the bosom of our dear university to express our undying gratitude and share with our esteemed professor, colleagues, and students the outcome of the wealth of experience we have acquired in our country, due to the divine protection, wise royal leadership, and the well-established citizenship values.

Perhaps, the initiative led by the Public Law and Human Rights Lab at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences of Mohammadia and the National Center for Legal Studies to organize this forum in partnership with the Supreme Council of the Judicial Power, is an occasion to consolidate the meaning of civic constitutional institutions and to feel the responsibility of contributing to building the future, through preparing generations capable of carrying on the course of growth and development.

Ladies and Gentlemen;

The Constitution of 2011 of the Kingdom of Morocco has truly fostered the concept of the state of law and institutions, in all its forms. It started with stipulating the separation, balance, and cooperation of powers, then promoted the protection of rights and freedoms as universally recognized, and lastly established the principles and mechanisms of good governance and participatory democracy, making these concepts occupy a significant place in Constitutional provisions and content.

If the essence of the state of law and institutions constitutes the prevail of the rule of law over the legislative, executive, and judicial powers; then legal security, considered one of its crucial principles, continues to be an obsession that every democratic state strives to achieve by all means and mechanisms, given that the establishment of trust in institutions has to go first through strengthening legal security, to be followed later by judicial security.

The wise choice of the topic of legal and judicial security for this forum, at this very moment, in conjunction with the first anniversary of the submission of the new development model to His Majesty the King, may God bless him, by virtue of the conclusions came to by the said report, is an explicit and responsible expression of everyone’s engagement in the success of this project. His Majesty the King bet on this project, at this critical juncture, to further the progress of Morocco and achieve a decent living as well as prosperity that the Moroccan citizen deserves, by launching a new generation of inclusive projects and reforms that put citizens at the core of their interests.

Justice in general and the judiciary, in particular, have been granted great importance in the new development project. There can be no development without judicial security, nor can the latter prevail without protected rights, safeguarded liberties, secured investment, and trusted institutions. As everyone is aware, judicial security is an indicator of the state’s trust in its institutions. The latter is spearheaded by both the judicial power and the judgments rendered by judges as part of their constitutional duty entrusted to them, specifically the fair application of the law as stipulated in the Constitution of 2011.

The judiciary has always been the keen interest of His Majesty the King. Judicial reform has been brought to the fore in his Majesty’s major projects, as he revealed on many occasions, namely in the throne speech of July 30, 2013, when he granted His high approval to the justice system reform charter: “Ever since I was entrusted with the sacred mission of leading the nation, the reform, moralization and modernization of the judicial system have been one of my main concerns. The aim is not only to ensure that justice is served and grievances are dealt with properly, but also to foster a climate of trust which is conducive to development and investment. In this respect, I am pleased that an agreement has been reached regarding a blueprint for the reform of the judicial system for which the right conditions have been met. Now, we must all be mobilized to ensure this important reform is fully implemented.” End of quote.

Being the bedrock of the state of law and the main accelerator of development, fostering the judiciary is a challenge that should be eliminated through improving and advancing justice to keep pace with the economic and social shifts taking place in different societies.

However, achieving the intended development, which the development model deemed an overriding goal to consolidate the rule of law, remains contingent upon the need to eliminate and overcome obstacles that impede the establishment of the pillars of the state of law and judicial institutions. Foremost among them are ensuring the hierarchy of laws, improving judicial control over the legitimacy of administrative decisions, ensuring compliance between national legislations and international commitments in Morocco, and reviewing outdated and inapplicable laws.

Thus, it is therefore apparent that the judiciary, being the haven for serving justice and dealing with grievances, is heading in the right direction to establish the foundation for its independence, and can only attain its objectives through the law, for it is the ultimate expression of the will of the state. However, the law needs to fulfill its security aspects, namely clarity, predictability, and equality; it also needs to avoid the regress of its provisions, keep pace with the development and changes that require being informed about new international legislations, and adopt new litigation trends based on exploiting modern technologies and the digital revolution taking place worldwide. This shall directly enhance transparency, accessing information, managing deadlines, settling outstanding cases, overcoming litigation delay, and increasing jurisprudence quality in order to achieve judicial security.

In this regard, the Council, together with the rest of the partners, was prompted to strongly engage in implementing the digital transformation of the justice system project. The latter is a part of the Council’s directions contained in its 2021-2026 strategic plan, modeled after the major strategic plans launched by His Majesty Mohammed VI, may God bless him, over the past years, primarily the new development model, the public administration reform, and improving the business climate in the Kingdom project.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I do not doubt that this valuable intellectual meeting shall answer questions that need elucidation, and suggest ways to enhance both legal and judicial security as they are the pillars of the sustainable development we all aspire to. I am certain that the interventions by our experts in this forum would, inevitably, add value to the accumulated experiences of our institutions and certainly contribute to implementing the best recommendations for the new development model.

Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh