Influences
Black Robes in Political Attire
Certainly, they have their National Order, as well as the Association of Bars of Morocco, but lawyers also operate under political banners. Against the backdrop of debates around justice reform, they are increasingly visible.
In recent years, politically labeled lawyers have never been talked about so much. Particularly since the start of the debate around justice reform.
Especially regarding the draft laws relating to civil and criminal procedure. A most instructive public intervention, since this contribution from the black robes has helped to lift the veil on the stakes of a profound reform of the judicial system.
This allowed those who did not know or knew little to discover that most political formations in the Moroccan political landscape have within their structures parallel organizations dedicated to the lawyers’ sector.
Indeed, in recent months, not a week goes by without hearing about a study day or a conference-debate organized by one or another parallel organization of a political formation whose subject is precisely these two draft laws.
Moreover, last February, the national council of the lawyers’ organization of the National Rally of Independents held, on the sidelines of a study day organized within the justice commission of the first Chamber of Parliament, a meeting devoted to the examination of draft law 03.23.
A question, as one might understand, of contributing to this national debate by bringing the stone and vision of the Dove party to this edifice of reform. One month later, it was the lawyers’ sector of the Party of Progress and Socialism that provoked, within the walls of the Casablanca Lawyers’ House, a meeting around the same subject.
Like these two formations, the “League of Lawyers” of the Istiqlal party was not left behind. Including their event within the framework of the annual program “2025, Year of Volunteering,” the black robes of the Balance party dwelled on the same subject during a meeting recently organized in the ochre city.
In the same vein, the lawyers’ sector of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces also participates in animating the debate by organizing its own meetings. Newly born, the lawyers’ organization of the Popular Movement has not yet made its voice heard, as it is still in the construction phase.
Its counterparts from the Justice and Development Party, once the period of certain “tenors,” including Mustapha Ramid, has passed, seem to have deserted the scene. The association Lawyers for Justice and Development appears to be struggling. The place being taken by “the voice of the master.”
Furthermore, in the wake of the restructuring of the parallel organizations of the Authenticity and Modernity Party, the “Forum of PAM Lawyers” is the waiting room. Although the lawyers of the Tractor party and the Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi, are part of it, they are indeed present in the debates relating to the reform of the judicial system.
It happened once!
In any case, these various right arms of the lawyers of the political formations mobilized the most, and in a concerted manner, against the backdrop of the 2023 Finance Bill. Notably, in connection with the fiscal measures that had aroused their ire. Certainly, they went under their respective political banners, but the political nuances were clearly perceptible.
The 31st Congress of the Order of Lawyers will constitute the height of tension. With, at stake, a communiqué signed, an “unprecedented fact,” by the militant lawyers of the USFP, PPS, RNI, PJD, FFD, and Istiqlal. A communiqué in which they called, in unison, for the withdrawal of the fiscal measures in question. But this circumstantial unity quickly gave way to new nuances.
Indeed, in October 2024, the lawyers of certain left-wing parties will give birth to a “National Coordination,” grouping together the black robes of the USFP, PPS, PSU, and FGD. A coordination that goes beyond the “corporation,” it was said at its creation.
And its initiators from the start “claimed” the “political dimension” of this coordination framework which was inscribed in the positioning of the mother formations. In short: “Oppose everything that comes from the majority.”
However, this Coordination, which had announced a common action program, entered a hibernation phase. Indeed, after the speeches at its birth, one no longer hears about it.
