International Parliamentary Meeting on Participatory Democracy on Thursday, January 28th, 2021

The Work of the Committee on Petitions and Motions at the House of Representatives, which includes, among other things, reviewing the successful international experiences in participatory democracy to benefit from the best practices in this area in order to advance the parliamentary management of citizens’ petitions and exchange experiences and expertise on the matter.

In the light of the Committee’s interaction with the petitioners, and as part of its providing technical support to citizens to present their petitions and motions on legislation, the Committee on Petitions and Motions is currently examining a petition on gender equality, which the Committee started following before its referral to the House of Representatives.

Hence, and in order to interact objectively with this petition, the Committee has decided to organize an international online seminar on “The Efficiency of Participatory Democracy,” which will be attended by members of the petitions committees at different parliaments of the world, which have had successful experiences in managing the citizens’ petitions or have previously examined petitions on gender equality or similar topics.

The overall aim of this international seminar is to get a closer look at the formation of the petitions committees at these parliaments and review their processes of managing the citizens’ petitions through exploring actual examples of their work on petitions on gender equality and their outcomes.

Objectives of the International Seminar:

The seminar aims at gathering a common cumulative knowledge about the best international experiences at:

- The legal level (legislation regulating participatory democracy),

- The structural level (the bodies in charge of examining petitions),

- The procedural level and methodologies for dealing with citizens' petitions by parliaments,

- The outcomes of petitions and motions (exploring real-life examples),

- The modern technological platforms used for receiving petitions online (if there are any).

The seminar also aims at identifying the challenges and obstacles that citizens and parliaments face in receiving and responding to petitions.

Organization

-  The Moroccan House of Representatives - the Committee on Petitions and Motions,

-  Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

Date & Time of the Meeting

Thursday, January 28th, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. Moroccan time (GMT+1)

Panellists

Mr. Rachid El Abdi: Chair of the Committee on Petitions and Motions, Moroccan House of Representatives

Mr. Mohamed Amghar: Deputy Chair of the Committee on Petitions and Motions, and Member of the Public Finance Control Committee at Moroccan the House of Representatives

Mr. Elliot Colburn: Member of the Petitions Committee, British House of Commons

Mr. Omar Abbasi: Deputy Rapporteur of the Committee and Member of the Justice, Legislation, and Human Rights Committee at the Moroccan House of Representatives.

Mr. Marian Wendt: Chair of the Petitions Committee at the German Parliament “Bundestag”

Mr. Monsef Derraji: Vice-Chair of the National Assembly Delegation for Relations with Morocco, Member of the Committee on Labor and Economy, and spokesperson for the Official Opposition on SMEs and innovation

Mr. Abdellatif Benyakoub: Rapporteur of the Committee and Member of the Infrastructure, Energy, Mining and Environment Committee, at the Moroccan House of Representatives

Mr. David Lowe: International expert in governance and citizen participation. Mr. Lowe is a graduate of the Manchester Metropolitan University and the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was a professor at the universities of Paris III and Lancaster, and then an advisor to the British Labor Party on international affairs. After that, he accessed the Cabinet of the President of the European Parliament where he pursued his career at the secretariat of various parliamentary committees. Mr. Lowe was the head of the Petitions’ Committee there for more than ten years.