Lawyers returned to courtrooms across Morocco on Wednesday after a five-month boycott that held up hearings and left cases in limbo, but their dispute over the law governing the profession is far from over.
Around 19,000 lawyers provisionally resumed work after the Association of Moroccan Bar Associations (ABAM) suspended the boycott launched in June against legislation introduced by outgoing Justice Minister Abdellatif Ouahbi.
The association wants to leave room for talks with the government now being formed following the Sept 23 legislative elections.
At the Hay Riad courthouse in Rabat, lawyers were back in numbers on Wednesday as judicial and administrative work resumed after months of disruption.
Abid Eddine Lotfi Abderrahman, a Rabat Bar lawyer, said the return followed a decision by the ABAM and that the association would decide what came next.
“The next steps will be determined by the Association, the only body responsible for managing this crisis,” he said.
The suspension covers legal representation across proceedings, including criminal cases involving defendants held in pretrial detention.
For the lawyers, going back to court does not mean backing down. Rabat Bar president Aziz Rebbah said the resumption was neither a retreat nor an acceptance of the disputed law, describing it instead as the beginning of “new forms of mobilization on the ground.”
The Rabat Bar, he said, would continue to follow decisions taken by the ABAM.
Lawyers have accused the legislation championed by Ouahbi of undermining the independence of their profession. The dispute dragged on through the final months of the outgoing government and will now confront its successor.
Head of Government-designate Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri began a second round of talks with political parties this week as she works to put together the next majority.
The five-month stoppage has left its mark on the courts.
Criminal, civil, commercial, labor, and family proceedings were repeatedly postponed, including cases involving people in pretrial detention and urgent family or financial disputes.
One litigant at Hay Riad said Wednesday’s return had finally allowed him to deal with problems that had been pending since June.
The disruption had already prompted warnings from prosecutors. In a July 29 letter, the King’s Prosecutor General at the Settat Court of Appeal warned that lawyers’ refusal to provide legal representation had brought the handling of cases close to “paralysis.”
