HM the King Gives High Approval to Appointment of Judicial Officials in Several Jurisdictions of the Kingdom

These appointments concern 79 positions of judicial responsibility, that is to say more than 35% of the positions of judicial responsibility in the various jurisdictions of the Kingdom, says a statement of the CSPJ.

These are:

– Five (5) First Presidents of Courts of Appeal;

– One (1) First President of Court of Appeal of Commerce;

– One (1) First President of Administrative Court of Appeal;

– Fourteen (14) Public Prosecutors of the Courts of Appeal;

– One (1) Public Prosecutor at the Commercial Court of Appeal;

– Twenty (20) Presidents of Courts of First Instance;

– Four (4) Presidents of Commercial Courts;

– Two (2) Presidents of Administrative Courts;

– Thirty-one (31) Public Prosecutors at the Courts of First Instance

These appointments have also involved seven women judges, five of whom assume responsibility for the first time, out of the 32 magistrates who have been entrusted with positions of responsibility, accounting for 40.50% of the total number of positions of responsibility that have undergone a change.

The Council congratulated the new judicial officials for the trust placed in them, urging them to assume their missions with the seriousness and firmness required with more will and determination, to take the initiatives aimed at the fair application of the law, to meet the conditions necessary for a fair trial and to respect reasonable deadlines to decide cases.

It affirms that its General Secretariat will take charge of setting the installation date of the new judicial officials.

The above-mentioned new appointments, decided under the first session of the year 2022, are added to the changes that affected the judicial positions of responsibility during the year 2021 and which involved 118 judicial positions of responsibility, bringing the number of changes to judicial positions of responsibility undertaken by the Council in less than two years to 197 positions, or 83% of the total number of judicial positions of responsibility in the Kingdom’s courts.

In addition, 72 changes that the Council had instituted at the level of positions of responsibility since the date of its installation in 2017 to 2019, which reflects the challenge that judicial officials are called to meet for the implementation of the strategy Council at the level of courts, especially with regard to the components of moralization, supervision, efficiency in the performance, good governance, support to the litigants, communication and cooperation with the various judicial professions.

The appointments that received the High Royal approval in the two sessions of 2021 and the first session of 2022 demonstrate that 87 judges were assigned for the first time the judicial responsibility, representing 44.16% of all positions affected by the change, which confirms the Council’s willingness to open the way for judges among women and young people and other judges who have not previously assumed the judicial responsibility to be invested with these vital missions in the judicial field and contribute to the improvement of its performance, which was also materialized by the interest of the Council in the selection of the deputies of the judicial officials who will benefit, as stipulated in the Council’s strategy, from training on the exercise of judicial responsibility.

During the same period, 13 women magistrates were appointed to various positions of responsibility, including eleven (11) who were granted the responsibility of judge for the first time: one (1) first president of a Court of Appeal, three (3) presidents of courts of first instance, two (2) presidents of commercial courts, two (2) Public Prosecutors at two courts of first instance and three (3) Public Prosecutors at the commercial courts.

These new appointments, added to those made in recent years, bring to 20 the number of women judges who currently hold positions of responsibility in the various courts of the Kingdom, representing 9% of all positions of judicial responsibility.

If this rate does not reflect so far the aspirations of Moroccan women judges to occupy high responsibilities, it has nevertheless doubled compared to 2020, which denotes the Council’s willingness to give women judges the place they deserve in terms of high responsibility positions alongside their male colleagues. This is a central point in the strategy of the Supreme Council of the Judicial Power, through which the Council encourages women judges to compete for positions of responsibility, while working to find competent women judges to qualify them for positions of high responsibility.