CNDH Presents Memorandum on New Development Model

The National Human Rights Council (CNDH) presented to the Special Commission on the development model its memorandum on the new development model entitled “The effectiveness of rights and freedoms in Morocco: For a new social contract”.

In a press release on Tuesday, the Council clarified that this memorandum is part of its contribution to the debate in the Kingdom on the new directions of the development strategy, in accordance with article 2 of law 76.15 on the reorganization of the Council and which stipulates that it will examine all questions relating to the defense and protection of rights and freedoms, while ensuring their full exercise and safeguarding the dignity, rights and freedoms of citizens, individuals and groups.

This memorandum presents, according to the same source, the Council’s vision on the development strategy aimed at making the effective implementation of rights and freedoms an essential element in ensuring the right to development and placing it at the center of the strategic choices of the country in the next stage.

The press release noted that the Council is adopting a comprehensive approach to the effective application of rights and freedoms which is not limited to its purely legal dimension relating to the application of laws.

The second objective of this strategy concerns recommendations capable of eliminating spatial and social disparities, which helps to strengthen the dimensions of rights for the desired new social contract.

“To remedy the dysfunctions that limit the effective application of rights and freedoms, it is essential to adopt public policies of a concrete procedural nature”, noted CNDH president Amina Bouayach, quoted by the press release, saying that the capacity of these policies and measures to achieve a deep and global change, so that rights and freedoms can constitute the starting point of the choices of development, depends on the creation of a break with the superficial approaches, basing these policies on a system of values ​​that governs the relations between the different components of society.

As part of the preparation of this document, the Council determined four main areas in which human rights and development constitute the basis for building an integrated development model, noted the press release, which specifies that these areas are based on the effective application of rights and freedoms, the need to respecify priorities to strengthen access to basic rights, the adoption of a development approach based on human rights and the need to instill a new dynamic for the efficient consolidation of rights and freedoms for the post-Covid19 period.

The memorandum also presents a structure which identifies the obstacles facing the achievement of human rights in Morocco on the basis of five elements relating to “the difficulties of turning the legal arsenal into effective guarantees for the protection of rights and freedoms, to disparities in access to rights as a source of social tensions, to the vulnerability of the legal dimension of development policies and the restriction of the values ​​of democracy, citizenship and civic behavior, in addition to the concern for sustainability”, it underlined.

It also offers a vision of the pillars on which should be based the alternative development choices based on the effectiveness of rights, as a condition for achieving citizenship and renewing the social contract, adopting a proactive approach in terms of the protection and strengthening of rights and freedoms and meeting the challenge of convergence between actors, programs and policies, said the press release.