publications

<<previous  |  index  |  next>>

II. Recommendations

To the Government of Morocco

To address violations of international due process guarantees

  • Amend the Criminal Procedure Code to include all the internationally recognized due process guarantees; adopt legislation to shorten the maximum duration of garde à vue (pre-arraignment) detention from the twelve-day maximum allowed under the 2003 counter-terror legislation. The legislation should conform to the U.N. Human Rights Committee's determination that a suspect must be brought before a judge or other officer authorized to exercise judicial power within “a few days.” The legislation should give detainees the right to a lawyer when they are first questioned by the police, and ensure that police inform them both of that right and of the right to remain silent; those who cannot afford a lawyer should have the right to a court-appointed attorney; enforce compliance with the legal duration of garde à vue detention; and to ensure judges investigate when there is evidence police may have entered a false date of arrest into their registry.

  • Amend the Criminal Procedure Code to require that investigative judges and trial judges grant defendants greater opportunities to produce exculpatory witnesses before the court and to cross-examine witnesses for the prosecution. 

  • Permit all defendants convicted under the Code of Criminal Procedure before October 2003, at a time when defendants had no right to appeal their convictions on factual grounds, to exercise such a right of appeal. 

To end torture and other forms of ill-treatment

  • Adopt legislation consistent with the recommendation of the U.N. Committee against Torture that “include[s] a definition of torture which is fully consistent with the provisions of articles 1 and 4 of the Convention.”

  • Ensure that all allegations of torture and ill-treatment, including the use of coercion, threats and intimidation, be promptly and independently investigated, and if credible evidence is found against law enforcement officers, to bring them to justice.

  • Ensure that detainees are immediately informed of their right to a medical examination, and that they can effectively and promptly exercise that right.

  • Enforce Article 293 of the amended Criminal Procedure Code, which ensures the inadmissibility of any confessions made under “violence or duress,” and implement the U.N. Committee against Torture recommendation to “incorporate a provision prohibiting any statement obtained under torture from being invoked as evidence in any proceedings.”

  • Withdraw all reservations that Morocco entered when ratifying the Convention against Torture, and make the necessary declarations provided for in Articles 21 and 22 of the Convention, so as to recognize the competence of the U.N. Committee against Torture (CAT) to make confidential investigations, and to consider individual complaints.  

To prevent secret detentions

  • Hold all detainees only in officially recognized places of detention, and cease all secret detentions, even if they take place on the premises of an officially recognized detention facility; amend Article 67 of the Criminal Procedure Code to ensure that authorities promptly convey to the family accurate information about a detainee's whereabouts and legal status, and provide them with prompt access to the detainee.
  • Ensure that detainees are taken into custody only on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by a judge (except where genuinely detained in flagrante delicto).
  • Allow immediate and unfettered access to Temara detention center to both national and international nongovernmental human rights organizations.

To enhance the effectiveness of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission

  • Declare that officials who obstruct or fail to cooperate with the commission will face penalties.
  • Declare that while the commission’s mandate prevents it from identifying individual perpetrators, it should turn over to Morocco’s judiciary investigative materials that will help the courts fulfill their duty to bring to justice perpetrators of grave abuses.
  • Declare that no amnesty or statute of limitations will apply to those implicated in acts of “disappearance” or other grievous abuses of human rights; and that any case of enforced disappearance that the commission does not fully clarify by the conclusion of its mission will remain the subject of a continuing investigation for as long as the victim’s fate is not clarified.

To the Equity and Reconciliation Commission

  • Disclose publicly the extent to which it is receiving the necessary cooperation of past and present officials in its investigations, cooperation measured in terms of the provision of oral testimony, documents, including medical-legal records and existing court files, and other items of evidence; the commission should also disclose the impact of any non-cooperation on the commission’s task of providing a full and truthful account of the period under its consideration.
  • Publicly reaffirm the need for criminal accountability for grave abuses, even if the commission itself is prevented from naming individual perpetrators.
  • Urge that any “disappearances” not successfully elucidated by the commission should remain the subject of ongoing investigation until the fate of the missing person is fully clarified, and that no amnesty or statute of limitations should apply to those implicated in “disappearances” or other grievous human rights abuses.
  • Ensure that the commission or another state body provides equal consideration to all forms of grave abuse of human rights – and not just arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance – in terms of what the commission provides to victims in the way of compensation, assistance and all other measures.
  • In light of the contested nature of events in the Western Sahara, the tighter security conditions in that region, and the large number of cases emanating from there, ensure that the commission gives equal consideration in its deliberations to Western Saharan victims of human rights abuse and to the Western Saharan population generally.
  • Make full use of the commission’s mandate to propose safeguards to prevent a recurrence of past abuses by underscoring that serious, and in some ways similar, abuses are occurring today; recommend concrete measures to end commonplace abuses of the rights of suspects in police custody and the acquiescence in those violations by a judiciary that fails to exercise its constitutionally guaranteed independence.

To the United Nations

To the Special Rapporteur on Torture

  • Request an invitation to visit Morocco to conduct an investigation of reports and allegations of torture and other mistreatment of detainees.

To the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

  • Request an invitation to visit Morocco and to conduct an investigation of reports and allegations of illegal and arbitrary detention of Moroccan detainees.

To the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC)

  • Request that in its next report to the CTC, Morocco include information on counter-terrorism measures taken following the May 2003 attacks in Casablanca.
  • Based on the review of the new and previous reports by Morocco, identify areas of concern, in particular vis-à-vis Morocco’s compliance with the provision of Security Council Resolution 1456 requiring that counter-terrorism measures adopted by states comply with international human rights and humanitarian law. Request more information as warranted.
  • Establish a long-term plan with Morocco for developing mechanisms for combating terrorism while protecting human rights.

To the U.S. Government

  • In all communications from all agencies of the U.S. government to the government of Morocco, send a clear and consistent message that respect for human rights must be integral to any security policy, including counter-terrorism operations.

  • Take all necessary measures to ensure that U.S. counter-terrorism assistance to Morocco is not used to violate human rights.

  • Raise with the government of Morocco in all official meetings concerns over the treatment of suspects arrests in the context of the counter-terror campaign, and insure that any security policy and counter-terrorism cooperation conform to international human rights standards.

  • Assist the Moroccan government with reforming the criminal justice system and with training programs for police, prosecutors and judges that include emphasis on the protection of due process rights of all detainees. This assistance should be conditioned on Moroccan authorities’ demonstrating the political will to carry through the reforms and make judicial independence a reality.

  • Do not extradite or arrange the rendition to Morocco of persons suspected of security or terrorist offenses unless and until the government provides verifiable guarantees that such persons will not be subject to torture or other ill-treatment in detention and interrogation; take steps to verify that suspects already returned to Morocco have not been subject to torture or ill-treatment.

To the European Union and its member states

  • In all communications from all agencies of the European Union and its member states to the government of Morocco, send a clear and consistent message that respect for human rights must be integral to any security policy, including counter-terrorism operations.

  • Raise with the government of Morocco in all official meetings concerns over the treatment of suspects arrested in the context of the counter-terror campaign, and insure that any security policy and counter-terrorism cooperation conform to international human rights standards.
  • Assist the Moroccan government with reforming the criminal justice system and with training programs for police, prosecutors and judges that include emphasis on the protection of due process rights of all detainees. This assistance should be conditioned on Moroccan authorities demonstrating the political will to carry through the reforms and to make judicial independence a reality.
  • Do not extradite or arrange the rendition to Morocco of persons suspected of security or terrorist offenses unless and until the government provides verifiable guarantees that such persons will not be subject to torture or other ill-treatment in detention and interrogation; take steps to verify that suspects already returned to Morocco have not been subject to torture or ill-treatment.

To the Arab League

  • Call upon the Moroccan government to respect and comply fully with the principles and obligations laid down in under Articles 7,8 and 13(a) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights (1994), which specify the right to presumption of innocence, the right to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, and the prohibition of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.


<<previous  |  index  |  next>>October 2004