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As part of its activities and in light of the delivery of several reports and others contributions from political parties to the Consultative Commission for the Revision of the Constitution, the Amadeus Institute organized on Thursday April, 21 in its office in Rabat a reflection meeting on the different segments of Constitutional reform involving representatives of political parties, civil society and Media

Thus, besides the presence of members of the Amadeus team, this debate gathered representatives of political parties: Mr. Adnan Benchakroun, member of the National Council of the Istiqlal party and Mr. Abdeslam Seddiki, politburo member of the party Progress and Socialism (PPS), the activist Mr.  Karim Tazi, Mr.  Mehdi Bensaid, president of the Association of Young Democrats Club and Mr. Samir Chaouki, managing editor of the Moroccan daily Les Echos.

The workshop entitled "March 9 Royal Speech or how to rethink the model of governance in Morocco?» was organized around two major themes namely the remodeling of the Moroccan political scene because of the advent of the royal speech and the necessary reforms in the fields of Justice and press.

The main objective of the Institute Amadeus on this conference was to compare the views of the triptych Political Parties / Civil Society / Media around these issues of reform of the Constitution through the axes above.

After a brief description of the methodologies adopted by their internal apparatus and sometimes the difficulties to find a consensus between the different trends in their respective parties, MM. Benchakroun and Seddiki also admitted the effective reshaping of the political scene following the Moroccan royal speech of March 9.

As the representative of the Istiqlal party referred to "a readjustment of sliders," which will permit both a better ideological reading of the parties and to lead them assume their responsibilities  ahead the voters, and  also to redefine a new redistribution of powers favorable to  the Parliament (and the opposition to play its role as a safeguard); counterpart from PPS evoked "the need to understand the exercise of constitutional reform as a whole" in which the king, whose powers are confined to the Defence and  Commandery of believers, retains a role as arbitrator over any interest, guarantor of national unity. This approach ended the concept of "ministries of sovereignty".

The general idea is to keep the Council of Ministers while integrating to constitution the Governing Council.

In this approach, an initial vision has quickly emerged: the role now essential that the parties are called to play, and whose representatives were also often questioned on the matter of their driven by Mr. Tazi. Speaking out clearly for a parliamentary monarchy, which is associated with a reduction of royal prerogatives, he did not hesitate to remind that "those who henceforth exercise the power must be held accountable”, also hoping that this internal revolution in which all parties are invited will end the phenomenon of parliamentary “notables”, evil in addition to the balkanization which gangrenes partisan life in Morocco for several decades.

A central role also supported by Mr. Bensaid who said "it would greatly assist the reorganization of political scene around the institution of parliament”, only body empowered to discuss and implement the broad policy of the country.

Mr. Chaouki,  as a professional press stressed the need to sit genuine editorial independence, far from self-censorship, increasing number of custodial sentences in the Press Code and the widespread practices of corruption that harm  the sector. According to him it is necessary to institute a specialized court.

Endemic corruption was also widely commented by our speakers, in particular about the current state of Justice in Morocco. Its independence, following a real separation of powers, is an imperative which is expected to be articulated to the revision of the fundamental text of this country.

Various other points were raised as parliamentary immunity, transhumance, revision of the Election Code or tax reform.

The summaries of these discussions will be the basis of the document that the Amadeus Institute in its primary role of force proposal will produce and deliver to the Mennouni Commission, as a constructive contribution to this debate nationwide.