Months after his appointment as head of the Ministry of Justice, I conducted a lengthy interview with its Minister, Abdellatif Wahbi, which was published in the pages of the magazine “Telquel” and the website “Telquel Arabi”. Among the things that were discussed in the interview was the position of the former son of the Democratic Vanguard Party, towards associations and bodies for the protection of public funds. His answer at the time was direct and clear, which is that he does not view with complete satisfaction the backgrounds of the requests for investigations and complaints submitted in the files of corruption and the looting of public funds, as they have turned, according to him, into a type of “blackmail”.
After what Wahbi revealed in his interview, he then came out, specifically on April 19, 2022, in the House of Advisors, and said at the time: “We will not find anyone in the future who will run for elections.” The Minister of Justice linked what he considered fear to the complaints filed by public money protection bodies and associations against elected officials, and he even went so far as to consider that a number of those complaints do not go beyond being “settling scores.”
Before delving into the validity of Wahbi’s premises, it is important to note that what is stated in Article 3 of the draft Code of Criminal Procedure is not surprising. In fact, the minister has spoken about it explicitly more than once, and has shouted out his convictions to everyone, which have been translated into ink on paper today. Therefore, there is no harm in admitting that the interaction with this file came very late, and Wahbi’s statements at the time were not accompanied by sufficient, deep, and influential discussion. As usual, we were content to watch and wait for a reaction instead of action.
Let us return to what the Minister of Justice translated from convictions into reality:
I originally believe that every law that is drafted or amended should be based on the principle of bringing public and private benefit, and not on the principle of its exploitation by some.
This means that we must place what is raised by associations and bodies for the protection of public funds in the context of what has been achieved thanks to them, according to a comprehensive assessment and not on the basis of what is produced by the special interest exceptions that the Minister of Justice described as “settling scores,” taking into account that it is difficult to prove that they are such in the first place.
Are all the files handled by the “protectors of public money” a settling of scores?
The answer will be easy if it comes from those affected by their censorship, and it is certain that they will present in their formal defenses hundreds of justifications that they are being targeted only on the basis of “settling scores” or “blackmail.”
But the answer, in reality, tells us that hundreds, if not thousands, of corruption and looting files have surfaced, and we have been alerted by the “protectors of public money”. The fact is that they did not stop there, but rather provided society with a window that translates the actual implementation of the right to obtain information and access it. Note that it is not enough to simply announce the opening of an investigation or activate judicial follow-up, but it is also necessary to know the fate of the files placed on the judiciary’s table, especially since Moroccans have long lost confidence in activating the principle of linking responsibility to accountability. The tons of files that entered the refrigerator of the judiciary and the Audit and Control Boards forced them not to wait for reassuring results regarding the protection of public money.
The reality also tells us that there is a continuing need for action by associations and bodies to protect public money, given the continued spread of the cancer of combining power and wealth and exploiting them together for each other’s gain, as in many cases, the person responsible is the same as the opponent and the judge, even if the names, titles and even characteristics differ.
Wouldn’t it have been better for the Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Wahbi, and his supporters to work hard to draft an article in the draft Code of Criminal Procedure, which would frame the right to file a lawsuit or demand an investigation by civil society, instead of completely eliminating this right?
This effort would have been the origin of the public benefit. Because it is within the associations and bodies protecting public money, and as our ancestors repeated over the centuries to distinguish between the ranks of members of the same family, “Not all the children of Abdul Wahid are one.”
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