Today, Wednesday, the security authorities in the capital, Rabat, prevented the protest march that was scheduled to take place from in front of the Ministry of Justice headquarters to the Ministry of Economy and Finance headquarters, after preparing a human security barrier to stop the progress of the demonstrators.
The protesters from the regulatory body affiliated with the Democratic Labor Union, which is part of the Democratic Labor Federation, were content with holding a protest in front of the ministry headquarters run by Abdellatif Wahbi, in the latest return to protest coinciding with the new political and social entry.
During this pause, what confirmed “the length and extension of the file and its arrival at an undesirable stage” took place, as it was pointed out at length that “the Ministry of Economy and Finance must move towards a stage of clarity with the clerks and indicate the financial cost required to download the contents of their basic system.”
The protesters warned the government of the need to “activate the principle of government solidarity and push the Ministry of Economy and Finance to indicate the financial cost of implementing the contents of the basic law,” while re-warning the Ministry of Justice to “not move towards approving anything that could disturb the consensus that was previously reached.”
The justice unions representing the court clerks continue to engage in strikes at various times since last February, as the Democratic Justice Union has been on strike since yesterday, Tuesday, until tomorrow, Thursday, while the National Justice Union (K.D.Sh) has drawn up a struggle program that includes strikes on the 10th, 11th, 12th, 18th, 19th, 24th, 25th and 26th of this month.
Hespress learned that the Prime Minister, Aziz Akhannouch, chaired a meeting last Thursday, in the presence of the Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Wahbi, and the Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget, Fouzi Lekjaa, during which the file of court clerks was discussed and it was agreed to hold meetings and dialogues with professional unions in order to stop the tension occurring at the level of the courts.
Waiting for the response of the Ministry of Finance
On the sidelines of this protest, Youssef Aidi, national secretary of the Democratic Union of Justice, said: “There is, to date, an ambiguous position by the Ministry of Finance regarding the implementation of our basic system, as we have previous and explicit agreements with the Ministry of Justice that we reached during the two years that the sectoral dialogue took.”
In a statement to Hespress, Aidi stressed “the need for clarity from the Ministry of Finance, despite our belief that the cost of implementing our basic system is normal and does not rise to the level of the cost required to implement basic systems for employees in other sectors,” noting that “the court clerks are today resuming an escalating struggle program, through which they insist on a fair and motivating basic system that takes into account the size of the additional burdens.”
Commenting on the Minister of Justice’s activation of the “pay for work” decision, the spokesman considered that this decision “will inflame the situation and make the Ministry of Justice part of the problem alongside the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which is not what we want, because we have no problem with the ministry to which we belong after we reached important agreements with its representatives regarding the draft of our basic law,” stressing “the necessity of finding a solution to this file in the near future.”
Deduction from wages is “unacceptable”
In the same way, the intervention of Fakhreddine Benhaddou, Deputy National Secretary of the Democratic Union of Justice, went on, who explained that “today’s protest comes within the framework of a struggle program that was outlined since last February, where there was enough good faith from us and we suspended the strike several times after promises to resolve the issue once and for all.”
Benhaddou added, in a statement to Hespress, that “the problem is not with the Ministry of Justice at all, but with the other governmental parties that refuse to submit their offers regarding this issue,” adding: “We were surprised as a union today by the security ban on the march that we were about to organize, which is unacceptable. We decided to turn it into a protest.”
The deputy national secretary of the Democratic Union of Justice confirmed that “the deduction threatened by the Ministry of Justice is unconstitutional, unacceptable and unjustified, coinciding with the failure to issue the strike law in its final form, and does not intimidate employees in the end,” before pointing out “the effort to discuss these various developments in order to study a new struggle program.”
