Covid vaccine pass prompts wide unease, as calls for repeal grow

A recent decision mandating Covid-19 vaccination in Morocco sold as a way to encourage people to be vaccinated is met with wide pushback from those who see it as a coercive measure that could cost thousands their jobs and compromise civil freedoms.

The pass on obligatory COVID-19 vaccination was announced on Monday and rendered compulsory on Thursday, requiring employees and users proof of vaccination to access administrations, public spaces and travel between cities, as about 5 million of the unvaccinated elligible population scrambles to cope with the decision.

“ This is a blow to the right to exercise individual and collective freedoms,” wrote the Moroccan Center for Human Rights in a statement, contending the government could have waited until 70% – 80% of the population was vaccinated to adopt the pass, “without resorting to arbitrary measures that involve exaggeration.” 

Part of the objections hinge on concern over  the unconstitutional authority granted to civil workers who are now tasked with controlling vaccine passes in public spaces, like restaurants and cafes,  says constitutional law expert, Abdalrahim Allam.

He explained that under  article 3 of the emergency law the government adopted in March 2020 to contain COVID-19, controlling the circumstances of public gatherings and movement is conferred only to law enforcement officials.

“The government needed to issue a new emergency law first to assure the legality for  mandating a vaccine pass in the Kingdom,” he said in an interview with Hespress EN.

Allam said the decision issued on a dispatch by the state agency MAP “raises questions on the circumstances of taking this decision”that needed to have been made public via an official ministerial declaration.

A wider public condemnation of the decision also drew on the absence of clear communication and national discussion around the pass, in a petition signed by over 30,000 people asking the government to back on the decision.

Member of the collective that launched the petition, legislator Nabila Mounib said she would appeal to the constitutional court to inquire into the constitutionality and legality of this decision and request its annulment.”