Following the United Nations Security Council’s recent adoption of Resolution 2797 on the Moroccan Sahara, which reaffirmed support for Rabat’s 2007 autonomy initiative, legal and political experts are debating whether Morocco’s 2011 Constitution provides a sufficient framework for implementing the autonomy model, or whether a constitutional amendment would be necessary.
The latest UN resolution, seen as an endorsement of Morocco’s autonomy proposal as a “realistic, credible, and serious” solution, has renewed questions about the legal mechanisms for putting such a plan into effect within Morocco’s current constitutional order.
Advanced regionalization as a reference point
Morocco’s Constitution does not explicitly mention “autonomy,” but it enshrines the principle of advanced regionalization as a pillar of territorial organization. Article 1 states that the kingdom’s territorial organization “is decentralized and based on advanced regionalization.”
The Constitution devotes its ninth chapter to regional and local governance, detailing how local bodies are elected and managed. However, the absence of any reference to autonomy raises legal uncertainties about how the 2007 proposal could be integrated without altering the current constitutional framework.
Another issue concerns political party organization. Article 7 of the Constitution prohibits the formation of parties based on religion, language, ethnicity, or region, a provision that could conflict with any region-specific political structures under an autonomy arrangement.
Experts divided over need for amendment
Constitutional law scholar Rachid Lazraq told Hespress AR that talk of amending the Constitution is premature, since the outcome depends on ongoing UN-led negotiations between Morocco and other parties to the dispute.
“If a final, internationally and nationally agreed formula is reached, limited constitutional amendments could become necessary to ensure coherence between Morocco’s internal legal order and the new commitments,” Lazraq said. “This would particularly concern the distribution of powers between the central government and the autonomous region, or the region’s representation in national institutions.”
He added that depending on how the autonomy plan is structured, it could potentially be implemented within the flexibility of Chapter 9 of the 2011 Constitution, through organic laws and regulatory decrees, without requiring a constitutional overhaul.
A likely constitutional revision
Other scholars believe a revision is inevitable. Parliamentary affairs researcher Salah Eddine Halim said that while the 2007 autonomy plan served as a political initiative, it did not outline the procedural or legal framework for implementation.
He explained that the 2011 Constitution only restricts revisions concerning Islam, the monarchy, democratic choice, and fundamental rights, as per Article 175, leaving room for discussion about autonomy as part of Morocco’s territorial governance models under national sovereignty.
“Autonomy, as a model of self-governance within Moroccan sovereignty, is not among the prohibited areas for constitutional revision,” Halim said. “In fact, reviewing the Constitution to accommodate it would be both possible and necessary.”
Toward a second generation of reforms
Both experts agree that any constitutional change would depend on the results of negotiations between Morocco and the other parties involved. Yet the debate sparked by Resolution 2797 has reopened discussions about Morocco’s second generation of constitutional reforms, more than a decade after the 2011 Constitution came into force.
Analysts say this renewed dialogue reflects Morocco’s determination to align domestic law with international commitments, while reinforcing the autonomy initiative as the basis for a lasting political solution to the Sahara issue.
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