The list of candidates having passed Morocco’s national bar exam unveiled a few days ago has dragged Morocco’s Minister of Justice into a whirlwind controversy, which he exacerbated through recent statements to the press.
Lawyers and law students organized on Tuesday a demonstration in front of the Parliament in Rabat, to protest the exam results, calling for the opening of an investigation to reveal alleged “nepotism and corruption.”
Modernity and Authenticity Party Secretary and Minister of Justice Abdelatif Ouahbi is on the receiving end of most of the controversy surrounding this exam, both for his position as the authority on the judicial system, and his son and close relatives who successfully passed the written bar exam.
On Monday, in a statement to the press on the sidelines of a meeting at the headquarters of his ministry, Ouahbi commented on the controversy, causing further outrage through his tone and “sub-par attempts at explaining the situation,” say protesting students who spoke to Hespress EN
“If they want me to publish the full list of those who passed and those who failed, I will publish it with names,” he said, implying that fraud was impossible considering the correction was automated.
Nassima L, a law graduate who took the bar exam and later was present in Rabat to protest its results, told Hespress EN that the Minister’s quota mention is itself problematic.
The graduate and her peers were not convinced by Ouahbi’s statements, saying that favoritism and corruption are highly probable when open positions are this limited, adding: “He said he can publish the lists, refusing an investigation, so we will keep demanding both the lists and an investigation.”
In response to nepotism allegations after many successful candidates were identified as sons and relatives of powerful families, the minister said: “Are they not citizens? Don’t they have the right to succeed? How many of them are there? 60, 70, or 100? 2,000 candidates passed, if the list included 900 sons of lawyers and 50 sons of politicians, it would have been a different situation,” he concluded.
Regarding calls for an independent investigation into this exam, Ouahbi insisted that since a committee oversaw the correction and review process, “I trust them, why should I open an investigation?”
On the matter of his own son, the Minister was steadfast and maintains the meritocracy argument, saying, “my son has two bachelors from Montreal, Canada.”
**NGOs, Parliament and civil society speak up**
Following the days-long controversy, the Moroccan Democratic Forum for Law and Equity called on the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Council of the Judiciary (CSPJ) to open a “serious and responsible” investigation on the matter, in practice of its “moral and legal responsibility.”
The NGO called for the “dismissal of the Minister of Justice,” and for the body to hold him accountable for this scandal.
Federation of the Democratic Left (FGD) MP Fatima-Tamni has sent a written question to Minister Ouahbi on Tuesday, requesting clarifications on the alleged discrepancies that affected the bar exam.
In her question, she referred to “the mismanagement of the written test,” expressing her surprise at “the participation of the Moroccan Bar Association in the process of automatic correction of the written test.”
The elected official additionally pointed out the presence of many successful students’ names on the list, who have been revealed as “relatives to senior officials of the Ministry of Justice, presidents of bar associations and other prominent personalities of the judicial field.”
The deputy questioned the minister on “the measures he intends to take to correct attempts to monopolize this noble profession,” and to “compensate those who have been deprived of their right to take an exam with equal and fair opportunities.”
