Morocco Seeks Extradition of 60 Suspects, Annual Justice Report Reveals

Of the 60 people whose extradition the Moroccan justice system has requested from several countries around the world in 2018, 12 have received a positive response. Meanwhile, during the same year, out of the 62 requests of the same kind for which Morocco has been solicited, a satisfactory response concerning 15 of them has been given.

Furthermore, the same Report specifies that in the field of international judicial cooperation, the Kingdom’s collaboration with other countries is proceeding without difficulty, according to the figures provided: the Public Prosecutor’s Office recorded 949 requests at the criminal level, not to mention 1046 notifications according to which foreigners have been prosecuted before the Moroccan justice, with 191 announcements of deaths of foreign defendants in Morocco. In addition, the Sherifian Kingdom issued no less than 45 international arrest warrants in 2018.

Moreover, at the national level, the Annual Report of the Attorney General’s Office of Morocco, which is in its second edition, acknowledges that in the Kingdom, the independence of the power represented by this judicial institution is not yet acquired. This does not prevent the number of complaints recorded by the Public Prosecutor’s Office from exploding in 2018 compared to the previous year, reaching more than 500,000. These are related to the courts of first instance and the courts of appeal.

In detail, this Report states that in 2018, the courts of first instance were more solicited by litigants than the courts of appeal: "The proportion of complaints filed before the courts of appeal does not exceed 4.27% of the total number of complaints during the year, while the public prosecutor’s office of the courts of first instance has a majority of 95.31% of the total number of complaints in 2018".

As for the Public Prosecutor’s Office, during the same year, an increase of 13% was observed in the number of complaints; they reached 1,517,502, compared to 1,346,753 in 2017. However, the digital channel is also fully exploited, as evidenced by the finding of about 1,436,516 complaints that were expressed electronically during the past year. On the other hand, in 2018, the judges were particularly overloaded, as evidenced by the summoning of an impressive number of people by the Public Prosecutor’s Office: 593,315.

With regard to the marriage of minors, during the past year, out of 33,686 requests recorded by the courts, 36% of them were rejected, while 21,059 cases were dealt with concerning the situation of the abandonment of dependent children.