Address of Hon. Rachid Talbi El Alami, Speaker of the House of Representatives, at Conclusion of the Second Legislative Session of the Third Legislative Year of the 11th Legislative Term
Esteemed Ministers,
Honorable Representatives,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We gather in this last constitutional sitting under the Third Legislative Year of the 11th Legislative Term, which, according to institutional tradition, we have been accustomed to devoting to establishing the record of our achievements as components and bodies of the House. This sitting also serves as an opportunity to review our production during the performance of our constitutional prerogatives and institutional functions.
The conclusion of this Legislative Session, at the level of plenary sittings, coincides with the Moroccan people's commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the accession of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may Allah glorify him, to the Throne of His Glorious Ancestors. It is an opportunity for us at the House of Representatives to renew our fidelity and loyalty to His Majesty, and to extend to His Majesty the heartfelt expressions of congratulations and gratitude, imploring the Almighty to protect him and perpetuate upon him the blessings of health and well-being, and to guard His Royal Highness Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan and strengthen his grip through his brother, His Royal Highness Prince Moulay Rachid and all the Princesses and Princes and members of the noble Royal Family.
Over 25 years, and thanks to the prudence and leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, the Kingdom of Morocco anchored its territorial integrity and reinforced its legitimate historical rights in the southern provinces through honest work on several fronts:
- The front of development, through implementing massive structural projects to develop the southern provinces;
- The front of international relations, thanks to the leadership by His Majesty of a firm and convincing diplomacy; and particularly
- The strategic and defense front, where the valiant Royal Armed Forces stand as an impregnable fortress against all attempts to transgress the national territory and security.
Hence, His Majesty pursued the successful path of his glorious Grandfather and Father, the Leader of Liberation, the Late His Majesty King Mohammed V, and the innovator of the Green March, the late His Majesty King Hassan II.
All these achievements have taken place in parallel to the consolidation of democracy and the State of institutions, the preservation of human rights in their various manifestations, the accomplishment of multiple transitions, and the reinforcement of the position of our country as an influential power at the regional, continental, and international levels.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We need to approach the achievements we have made in our prerogatives and functions in light of the national context, in their dialectic relationship with the questions and concerns of the Moroccan society, and in a way that would enable us to foresee the future by building on achievements following the logic of accumulation.
In this regard, the collective keenness of the components of the House, both of the Opposition and the Majority, focuses on ameliorating our production in control, evaluation, and legislation, within the scope of which there has been consensus on the amendments proposed to the Rules of Procedure of the House, as it is the second reference that regulates our proceedings after the Constitution of the Kingdom.
In addition to our keenness to integrate the remarks included in the decision of the Constitutional Court regarding the Rules of Procedure, we also took into consideration the high Royal directives regarding the Parliamentary Code of Ethics, included in the Royal Message addressed by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may Allah assist him, on January 17, 2024, to the participants in the National Conference Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the First Elected Moroccan Parliament.
In application of said high Royal directives and the enlightened Royal vision, we all committed, as Opposition, Majority, Board of the House, and Chairpersons of the Parliamentary Groups and Caucus, to drafting a Parliamentary Code of Ethics that regulates a set of practices and cases, and stipulates the imperative of prioritizing the public interest and setting the example in parliamentary practice and behavior.
The main objective behind this is to contribute to advancing democracy, anchor the Rule of Law, reinforce the culture of dialogue, and strengthen trust in institutions, as His Majesty underscored.
Honorable Representatives,
The Rules of Procedure are not some regular text that organizes our proceedings, but rather a multidimensional one that transcends regulating our proceedings to organizing our relationship with the Executive Branch and the other constitutional institutions and governance bodies and defining the sanctions for violating its provisions. It is a binding text that we must all commit to implementing, respecting, and embodying its provisions, philosophy, and core in each act, each position, and each decision, knowing that it is not a rigid text, but one that is open to amendment and revision to adapt it to developments so it responds to the problems arising amidst the practice.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Always within the scope of the practice of our legislative prerogative, we should recall the consensus the House of Representatives and the Government reached over the 13 parliamentary bills we adopted. As I have always affirmed, and although legislation cannot be reduced to the number of texts, the adoption of such a number of parliamentary bills during one legislative session remains a positive precedent, a headline of consensus between the political components of the House, and a manifestation of cooperation between Branches. Besides, I have always stressed the importance of the legislative initiatives of the members of the House as they are based on listening to the concerns of society. Therefore, our aspiration remains greater in terms of interacting with the legislative initiatives of the members of the House.
On another note, we must mention the great importance of the Government Bills we adopted, which have totaled nine, in organizing and regulating public social services and economic, financial, and social activities, and particularly in guaranteeing and securing the rights of all.
In this respect, we adopted the Government Bill on the Code of Civil Procedure, a text we are all aware is of significant importance in facilitating the procedures of adjudication and constructing a justice system on the bases of rights, the law, and equality between citizens before the justice. The amendments proposed to the text by the members of the House, which reached 1161 amendments, of which 28 percent, meaning 263 amendments, were adopted totally, and 65 amendments were adopted partially, testify to the input of the House in legislation and reflect the collective desire to conduct reform and ameliorate our national laws.
Both the Rules of Procedure of the House and the Code of Civil Procedure are texts of notable weight and represent vital reforms, as it has been 50 years since the last revision of the Code of Civil Procedure, which has not featured any core amendments since 1974. Today, we have abrogated the text in force and adopted a new one that is composed of 644 articles, which required this extensive debate that we have witnessed, all these amendments, and this collective keenness to adopt a text of better quality.
The House of Representatives also adopted the Government Bill amending and supplementing the Law on the reform of the Regional Investment Centers and the creation of the Unified Regional Investment Committees. This Bill is a decisive milestone in facilitating the procedures of investment, promoting the territorial localization of investment projects, and encouraging private initiatives, particularly within the context of implementing the new Investment Charter and ameliorating the business climate.
Ladies and gentlemen,
During the ongoing Legislative Term, we, the Board of the House of Representatives, committed to respecting the regularity of the exercise of the prerogative of public policy evaluation. In this regard, and since the onset of the 11th Legislative Term, we launched several evaluation processes, three of which we have completed and discussed their reports within the full respect of the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure, particularly as regards the principle of annuality.
On another note, we should mention that for the first time since the constitutionalization of public policy evaluation as one of the prerogatives of the Parliament, the House conducted an evaluation of the conditions of implementation of a law in force. More importantly, said evaluation covered Law 103-13 on combating violence against women, a law of tremendous dimensions and stakes on which we can all agree.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The presentation of the interim report on the implementation of the Government program by the Head of Government before the Parliament and the debates that followed said presentation at the House of Representatives were a prominent democratic moment for questioning, dialogue, and a free democratic debate between the Legislative and Executive Branches, as well as a constitutional moment of control that anchors the democratic methodology and the principles of accountability and transparency.
In the same field, and during the practice of their control prerogatives, the components of the House interacted with the matters of Moroccan society and the questions that enjoy the attention of the public opinion, as social themes like education, health, employment, housing, and the situation in the rural world amidst drought and water scarcity topped the concerns of the members of the House in their questions to the Government, whether during the monthly sitting where the Head of Government responds to the questions raised by the members of the House, or during the weekly sittings for oral sectorial questions during which 337 questions were scheduled, including 83 timely ones.
As per the tradition, written questions served as a mechanism to convey the concerns and matters of citizens to the members of the Government. In this respect, the House referred, during this Session, 1758 written questions to the various Government departments. In return, the House received 1240 answers to said questions. In total, the written questions addressed by the members of the House during this Legislative Year, up until July 24, amounted to 3675 questions, 3274 of which were answered by the Government.
The total of questions addressed to the Government since the start of the 11th Legislative Term amounted to 17148 questions, while the answers of the Government until July 24, 2024, reached a total of 12204, making it a response rate of more than 71%.
Additionally, the Standing Committees formed another framework where the members of the House exercised their prerogative of control and addressed questions to the members of the Government. To this end, the Committees held 16 meetings to discuss 15 themes raised through 30 requests presented by the Parliamentary Groups and Caucus.
The Committees also discussed the opinions and reports of several constitutional institutions, reviewed their conclusions and recommendations, and drew the lessons that can be utilized in legislation and control.
The record of the House in the field of control also featured the proceedings of the exploratory missions authorized by the Board of the House to collect information and draft reports on numerous public activities and interventions of public institutions.
These missions included the Exploratory Mission on the situation of university campuses that has concluded its proceedings, and its report was examined by the competent Standing Committee, in addition to the Exploratory Mission on the situation of sand and marble quarries that followed the same procedure. The third Mission on the Moroccan National Highway Company is currently finalizing its report, while the fourth Mission focused on forensic medicine, given the importance of this profession to families and justice.
It should be noted that the Board of the House authorized, during this Session, the conduct of an exploratory mission on the contribution of the “Forsa Program” to ameliorating the job offer in Morocco.
In this regard, I shall reaffirm the importance of this mechanism in strengthening the control action of the House and interaction between the Legislative and Executive Branches and in enriching the public debate on managerial matters that enjoy the attention of the public opinion. We must also remain keen to hasten the proceedings of the exploratory missions by means of abiding by the set deadlines, commit to their nature, and respect the limitations and jurisdiction conferred on them. The main objective of said missions remains ameliorating efficiency, drafting effective reports, and covering the most extensive scope of sectors.
Both evaluation and control have the same objective and stake: identifying the impact of public policies, programs, interventions, and spending on the lives of citizens, as well as the evolution and governance of public services.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In parallel to the exercise of our missions in legislation, Government action control, and public policy evaluation, we continued to work on the front of foreign affairs and parliamentary diplomacy, as we committed to reinforcing bilateral relations with several national parliaments in several continents and geopolitical spheres. We also pursued our active presence within multilateral, international, continental, regional, and thematic parliamentary organizations in the four continents of Africa, Europe, America, and Asia, an exceptional and unprecedented presence.
In this respect, we followed references, values, and rules, namely:
- The commitment to the national diplomatic credo as defined and led by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may Allah assist him, and in complete complementarity with the official diplomacy;
- The influential and active presence in terms of defending our national interests and causes, at the forefront of which the cause of our territorial integrity and our sovereignty over our southern provinces;
- The vigilance in countering the attempts of our foes to cause confusion as regards the matters of sovereignty on the basis of wrong, fallacious, and out-of-context narratives that are astray from historical and geographical facts;
- The institutionalization and legal regulation of our bilateral cooperation in order to achieve valuation and the necessary accumulation in our parliamentary relations;
- The attachment to exchange and thematic dialogue, mainly through international cooperation and partnership programs that constitute a gate for our influential presence and a bridge that facilitates our relations with several parliaments and parliamentary organizations and eases the sustainability of cooperation, the construction of trust, and the promotion of our institutional model in representative and participatory democracy among our partners.
All these achievements could, of course, not have been achieved without the geopolitical position and the esteem enjoyed by our country thanks to the reforms it conducts and the democratic maturity it has achieved, as His Majesty the King previously noted.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Seeking a clearer vision and more precise information, and by means of supporting our proceedings, the Board of the House, in cooperation with the Chairpersons of the Parliamentary Groups and Caucus, was keen to establish working groups in accordance with the provisions outlined in the Rules of Procedure of the House. In this respect, the Board of the House established the Thematic Working Group on Equality and Parity, the Thematic Working Group on African Affairs, the Thematic Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, and the Thematic Working Group on Energy Transition.
I certainly do not need to delve into the timeliness of the themes assigned to these Thematic Groups to examine and collect information on amidst the current and future national, regional, continental, and international context and in view of the challenges our country faces in the questions they are tasked with examining and proposing suggestions and ideas that we at the House aspire would further ameliorate our performance in enacting legislations for society, controlling Government action, and evaluating public policies.
Honorable colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
The foregoing was a narration and an overview of our achievements during this Legislative Session, noting that they are the fruit of the collective effort of the Opposition and the Majority. Said achievements could undoubtedly not have been made without the cooperation and interaction between the House and the Government, whom I shall laud. I also shall praise the constitutional role played by the parliamentary opposition and the majority in enriching the debate and interacting with societal questions, aspiring to reinforce this dynamism further in terms of production for the institution to contribute through the exercise of its prerogatives and the performance of its duties to the development of our country and its surge under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may Allah assist him.
Thank you for your keen listening.