These Moroccan MPs who do not pay child support

The case is causing a stir in the corridors of the hemicycle. The courts have ordered the seizure at source of the allowances of five deputies, forced by public force to honor their family debts. Among them, an elected representative from the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra region would even have tried, in a panic, to negotiate discretion with the financial administration of the Parliament, begging that the affair not be leaked so as not to become the laughing stock of his political group.

The paradox is stinging. These representatives of the nation, responsible for defending the rights of citizens, find themselves in breach of basic moral obligations. Some cases are due to negligence, but others amount to blatant bad faith: a deputy, however reputed to be wealthy, is said to have accumulated up to 200,000 dirhams in arrears of alimony before the courts blocked his transfers.

While garnishment of wages is a first step, these elected officials have narrowly avoided the worst. The Moroccan Penal Code (Articles 479 and 480) provides for custodial sentences for abandonment of family and refusal to pay alimony. Now, with the imminent implementation of a digital platform by the Ministry of Justice to track down defaulters, the noose is tightening. For these "fathers of the law" who forget to be fathers at all, parliamentary immunity does not cover family irresponsibility.