Moroccan Lawyer Wins Court Case Against Gendarmes Over Speeding Ticket Dispute

It all started with the arrest of the lawyer for speeding on one of the national roads. The legal professional asked to see the radar, as well as the photograph documenting the offense. This request was met with refusal from the gendarmes. He took the matter to court. In his appeal, he explained that the officer who wrote the report had not directly observed the offense, but had received it from another gendarme hidden by the roadside, who had photographed the vehicle using the radar and transmitted the data via an internal communication method. According to the lawyer, this was a clear violation of legal provisions requiring direct observation of the offense by the author of the report.

The Court of First Instance of Chefchaouen examined the case. This type of procedure lacks legality, considering that an offense cannot be proven based on data whose source is legally unknown, or by a third party whose presence is not mentioned in the observation report, the court ruled in a decision rendered on March 19, before declaring that the report was null and void and that the offense had no legal basis. The court also ordered the restitution of all sums paid by the plaintiff and charged the costs to the Public Treasury.

A similar decision was recently rendered by the Court of First Instance of Ouarzazate. It had acquitted a person of a speeding-related offense. In its decision, the court challenged the validity of the report drawn up against them, arguing that the actual observer of the offense was not the one who had written the report. The offense was transmitted via the "WhatsApp" application from another location.