Committee on Petitions and Motions Holds Meeting with Members of Thematic Working Group on Equality and Parity and the Members of the Committee Submitting the Petition for “Parity Now”

The Committee on Petitions and Motions at the House of Representatives held on Wednesday, February 3^rd, 2021, a meeting chaired by the Committee Chairperson Rachid El Abdi. The meeting was attended by the women parliamentarians members of the Thematic Working Group on Equality and Parity and by the members of the petitioning committee that submitted the "Parity Now” petition, currently being examined by the Committee on Petitions and Motions.

The Chairperson of the Committee on Petitions and Motions launched the meeting by noting that it is a unique parliamentary precedent of inviting the members of the petitioning committee to defend their cause and present further clarifications on their petition. Mr. El Abdi also noted that the House of Representatives was the first to implement the provisions of the Constitution and the Organic Law 44.14 by amending its Rules of Procedure in 2017. The House, then, created the Committee on Petitions and Motions, which was democratically formed of equal members from the majority and the opposition as a strong indication of the desire to maintain impartiality and objectivity in its action.

Since its creation, the Committee on Petitions and Motions worked on establishing its work procedures and the mechanisms of receiving the citizens' petitions and motions via the different mechanisms provided by the two organic laws and the provisions of the Rules of Procedure. The Committee has had the full support of the House’s Speaker and the different political parties represented within it.

Besides, Mr. El Abdi reviewed the process of examination of the “Parity Now” petition at the House of Representatives. In this respect, the House received the said petition on December 31^st, 2020. Then, it was referred to the Committee on Petitions and Motions on January 12^th, 2021. The latter, according to the provisions of Organic Law 44.14 and the Rules of Procedure of the House, has one month to review the petition’s fulfillment of the legal requirements and decide on its conformity.

Hence, the Committee started examining the petition since day one of its reception. In this respect, it reviewed its conformity to the formal requirements, including the number of signatories, which amounts to 13,816, including 13,692 paper signatures and 125 electronic ones. Then, the Committee corresponded with the Head of Government to ensure that all the signatories are eligible for their civil and political rights.

The Chairperson of the Committee on Petitions and Motions then focused on the content of the petition, lauding the great effort put in its drafting and its scientific depth that draws upon the international and constitutional references, especially Article 19 of the Constitution, which gave new impetus to defending women’s rights and helped bring this petition to life.

Mr. El Abdi noted that the decision to hold this meeting was a right one, as it is part of opening up to the petitioners and hearing their defense and clarifications, to obtain a full picture and enrich the upcoming debates as part of the examination procedure and the participatory approach adopted by the main components of the House via the Thematic Working Group on Equality and Parity.

For her part, Chairperson of the Thematic Working Group on Equality and Parity Fatima Zahra Nazih noted, in her address on this occasion, that parity as a concept receives positive feedback within the Moroccan society. Therefore, and due to the mobilization of feminist movements in this social dynamic, the Group had to engage through several accumulations that were established thanks to the organized seminars and conferences.

According to Fatima Zahra Nazih, the belief in parity is linked to constantly defending the mechanisms that can achieve this demand, starting from the continuous struggles and the existence of a progressive Constitution that has clearly established equality between men and women in political, civil, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights and liberties. The Constitution has also consolidated parity and stipulated the creation of an authority for parity and fighting all forms of discrimination, emanating from the noble Royal determination that stands for gender equality.

Later, the petitioners, headed by Ouafa Hajji, the representative of the petitioning committee, took the floor to present and defend their petition. In this respect, they considered this dynamic an unprecedented one that is marked by the engagement of all political, unionist, mediatic, and cultural active forces to materialize the petition under examination and to establish a framework law to achieve parity between men and women, in application of Article 19 of the Constitution, and to work, later, on consolidating parity and adopting the project on the horizon of the next elections.

As for the objectives of the petition, the latter aims to unify the legislator's vision on women's rights and the equality that must prevail between women and men in all fields, in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph of Article 19 of the Constitution. This is to overcome the ambiguities and confusions that have characterized this vision in numerous legislations dealing with different aspects of women’s rights. In the same respect, the petition also aims to achieve equality between women and men in its professional, social, cultural, economic, representative, territorial, and sporting dimensions, and to fight precariousness of women and violence against them, following the international commitments in which the Kingdom of Morocco has engaged. These goals would only be achieved through updating the national legal arsenal and conforming it to the international agreements and conventions on women’s rights and gender equality.

The petition's objectives also include the generalization of parity in public State bodies and communes and to achieve it in positions of responsibility in within the State and public institutions. It also attempts to broaden the scope of women’s political participation beyond participation in elections and representation within elected bodies, to include the bodies and structure emanating from such institutions at the national and local levels. Besides, the petition aims to extend the framework of implementing parity between men and women to include new areas of participation and decision-making within the State, public institutions, and communes.

During the open debate with the deputies, the participants stressed the imperative of reviving the dynamic of feminist activism to achieve parity and consolidate women empowerment and their financial independence and political consciousness and encourage them to engage in politics and the feminist cause. The participants also noted the importance of creating the Authority for Parity and Fight Against all Forms of Discrimination, stipulated in Title 12 of the Constitution as one of the "instances of human rights protection and promotion."

The participants agreed on the imperative of moving on to the implementation of more efficient mechanisms that impose and establish parity in all the aspects of regulating women’s participation, both at the levels of legislation, institutions, and public policies, while guaranteeing the commitment of all the actors in the political, economic, social, and cultural life, to adopt parity as a binding and orienting legal rule. They also called on political parties to willfully engage in this project by encouraging women to participate in political representations actively, and to link parity to the challenge of consolidating democracy and advancing mindsets and practices.