Morocco Considers Day-Fine System to Reform Prison Sentences

Are we moving towards the adoption of the day-fine concept? During his intervention at the opening of the second National Conference focused on the theme "Institutionalization of social assistance with the courts and prospects for the development of services provided to children, women and specific categories", organized in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Minister of Justice Abdelatif Ouahbi announced the upcoming adoption of a law establishing the day-fine as an alternative to days of detention, reports Hespress. He stressed that the objective of this measure is to take into account the human dimension of the detainee and specified that it will only be considered once.

According to the official, the amount of the day-fine will be determined by the magistrate according to the financial resources of the convicted person. If he is able to pay the day-fines, he could have to pay 3,000 dirhams per day. Conversely, he could only have to pay 50 dirhams. The possibility will be offered to certain convicts to serve their sentence from their home while wearing an electronic bracelet. They will also benefit from psychological and social support provided by social workers. But, warned the minister, "if the beneficiary of the alternative sentence does not respect his obligations and repeats his actions, he will return to prison to serve his initial sentence, even if he has already paid the fine, because the money is paid to the State".

Ouahbi also mentioned the need to accelerate the modernization of the judicial system and the digitization of its services, thus making access to justice easier for citizens. This project would involve the simplification and dematerialization of administrative procedures related to justice.