Joint Release by House of Representatives and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Speaker of House of Representatives Habib El Malki held talks on Monday, July 12, 2021, at the House, with the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Rik Daems. The talks tackled the outcomes and prospects of the fruitful cooperation linking the two institutions as part of the status of a partner for democracy, which Morocco holds within the PACE since 2011.

After lauding the keen efforts of the members of the Moroccan representation at the PACE, which is one of the most active delegations, Mr. Rik Daems noted that the reforms introduced by Morocco with support from the PACE since the adoption of the 2011 Constitution make it a role model in Africa at the level of human rights.

On the same occasion, Mr. Rik Daems highlighted the importance of the legal arsenal that regulates the work of the Assembly, which includes more than 200 conventions. In this respect, he particularly mentioned the Lanzarote Convention on Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse and the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention.

The President of PACE expressed his desire for the Moroccan Parliament to contribute to the translation of the Istanbul Convention into Arabic.

Additionally, the President of PACE received an invitation addressed to the PACE to observe the legislative elections that the Kingdom will hold on September 8, 2021.

For his part, the Speaker of the House of Representatives noted that the visit to Morocco by Rik Daems coincides with the tenth anniversary of Morocco's accession to the status of a partner for democracy within PACE. In the same context, he affirmed that "Morocco's engagement in the path towards consolidating its democratic choice and the advance it has made in entrenching the rule of law, in addition to the status of a partner for local democracy that was granted to it by the CoE Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in April 2019, provide promising opportunities to uplift the relations with the PACE.”