Candidates who failed the qualifying tests for the legal profession and the competition for clerks — who refer to themselves as “failed” — returned to the streets to protest against “favoritism and nepotism in access to recruitment competition at the Ministry of Justice”, following the scandal caused by the last competition for clerks, requiring the public prosecutor to open an investigation into the “offenses” in the competitions organized by the ministry.
The National Coordination of Bar Exam Victims and the National Coordination of Clerks’ Competition Failures organized a joint sit-in in front of Parliament this Saturday afternoon, denouncing the ” offenses and manipulations which mark the examinations and competitions of the Ministry of Justice”, according to the announcement of the event. At the top of their demands is the “resignation of the Minister of Justice”.
This demonstration follows the controversy caused by the participation of Mohamed Abdelwahab Rafiki, known as Abou Hafs, a prominent Salafist figure and advisor to the Minister of Justice, in the clerks’ competition, which he passed, although he is around fifty years old, while the civil service law stipulates that the age of candidates for civil service competitions must not exceed 45 years.
The authorization given to Rafiki to take the clerks’ competition was justified by the fact that the law allows candidates for civil service competitions to submit a request on this subject to the Prime Minister, in order to obtain an exemption. However, the failed candidates believe that the results of the last competition for clerks “ are a reflection of the corruption that marks recruitment competitions at the Ministry of Justice.”
The protesters demanded “the cancellation of the competition for clerks tainted by administrative corruption and the opening of an investigation into its results”qualifying these results as “suspects”. They also demanded the resignation of the Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi, and his accountability, believing that this represents“a popular demand”.
“We demand the immediate resignation of Minister Ouahbi and his accountability, a non-negotiable demand”declared Oussama Jabari, who introduced himself as “one of those who failed the bar exam and the clerks’ competition,” adding:“We must remove Ouahbi from his position, because we will not be able to obtain justice if we turn to justice while he is in a position of responsibility.”
Angrily, the latter explains that“There are relatives of officials in the central services and directorates of the Ministry of Justice who passed the competitions organized by the ministry, which constitutes a conflict of interest and an abuse of power.”
For his part, Abdel Nasser Oulad Abdallah, member of the national committee of victims of the bar exam, noted that“after the offenses which marked the qualification examination for the profession of lawyer, which we cannot accept neither in form nor in substance, came the scandalous affair of the competition for clerks, which also saw, in addition to the success of people close to important officials of the Ministry of Justice, the success of people who do not even meet the legal conditions to take the competition, which constitutes a conflict of interest and an abuse of power.
