GENEVA: CNDH PRESIDENT LAUDS MOROCCO’S OPENNESS TO THE UNITED NATIONS MECHANISMS

President of the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), Mr. Driss El Yazami, emphasized that Morocco has an important legal and institutional framework fostering the emergence of an effective culture of human rights. He welcomed Morocco’s commitments, through the Inter-ministerial Delegation for Human Rights, to develop a plan to implement the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the treaty bodies and the special procedures’ mandate holders, including the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Mr. Juan Mendez, who visited Morocco on September 15-22, 2012.

In an oral statement in the interactive dialogue held by the Human Rights Council with Mr. Mendez, Mr. El Yazami lauded the openness of Morocco on the special procedures’ mechanisms of the United Nations, especially as it received between September 2011 and September 2012 the Independent Expert on Cultural Rights, the Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice, as well as the Special Rapporteur on Torture. In 2013, Morocco will have the visit of the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.

The President of the CNDH urged the government to take into account, in the ongoing reform of the judicial system, the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on Torture concerning the definition of torture, the immediate access to a lawyer after detention, and the substantial reform of the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure.

In the same vein, Mr. El Yazami reiterated his call for a rapid deposit of the instruments of ratification of the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OP-CAT). He also called the government to develop, in partnership with all stakeholders, a national action plan against torture based on the National Plan of Action on Democracy and Human Rights.

It should be noted that the Interministerial Delegate for Human Rights, Mr. Mahjoub El Haiba, who represented the government in this interactive dialogue, said that Morocco has decided to accede to the OP-CAT and is currently “finalizing the process of creating a national mechanism to prevent torture” in accordance with the Optional Protocol. He affirmed that the CNDH, as an independent pluralistic national institution, is able to fulfill this function, especially as it has 13 regional commissions for the protection and promotion of human rights across the country and has gained considerable experience in visiting detention facilities.

For the record, the CNDH has issued many recommendations that largely overlap with those made by the Special Rapporteur on Torture (included in recent reports on prisons and psychiatric hospitals and reports to be published in March on child protection centers and forensic medicine). It has recently published four memoranda on the Constitutional Court, the plea of unconstitutionality, the High Council of the Judicial Power, and the reform of the military court to prevent the trial of civilians before this court. Similarly, the CNDH is preparing three reports on the situation of police custody centers, elderly centers, and the situation of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.