Since his arrival at the head of the Ministry of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi has collected pans and controversies. Latest: he is accused of nepotism by the candidates for the examination of the profession of lawyer, his own corporation
At the end of 2022, the Moroccan Ministry of Justice publishes the list of those admitted to the competition for the profession of lawyers. Immediately, anger rumbles in the ranks of the failed. They believe they have been wronged, accusing Minister Abdellatif Ouahbi of nepotism.
Because among those admitted, several have similar surnames, including that of Ouahbi. They also point out that many of those admitted are “sons of” – children of parents who already practice as lawyers, some being current or former presidents of the bar.
True to his character as a man of confrontations, Ouahbi replieswithout flinching: “A commission supervised the various stages of the competition and I have confidence in this commission. Do these citizens not enjoy the same rights as the others? How many would they be? 60 or 70 out of 2,000. So where is the problem? You don’t have to pay so much attention to surnames that look alike. For example, there are 42 people with the name Ouahbi in the profession. Are they all related to the minister? »
A minister used to controversies
Determined, these candidates form a “coordination” and undertake several forms of protest. They seize the public prosecutor of the king at the Court of Cassation to demand the opening of an investigation into the results of the competition. They also address Mohammed VI, through correspondence to the royal cabinet.
But events took another turn on February 24, when a dozen of them began a hunger strike, after “having exhausted all forms of protest, without response from the supervisory ministry”.
Ouahbi then seems more willing to negotiate. To extinguish the fire, he invites coordination to dialogue.
“During these two meetings, the ministry showed openness and expressed its desire to open up dialogue. However, we would like to emphasize that the opening of dialogue is not considered as an objective in itself by the coordination, but just a means to be able to present our various demands”, indicated the president of the coordination, Amine Nasr-Allah, to local media . The coordination then decides to suspend the strike.
Since he inherited the Ministry of Justice in September 2021, Abdellatif Ouahbi, also secretary general of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (center left), has been a chain of controversies : in less than two years in office, he has succeeded in alienating lawyers, magistrates and civil society. In the summer of 2022 in particular, he accused certain associations for the protection of public funds of “blackmailing” elected municipal officials as well as former ministers.
Transparency International has assigned Morocco a score of 39 in its public sector corruption perception index for the year 2021, below the world average (43).
