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In March 2020, Yabiladi revealed that thousands of individuals and companies had been sentenced in debt recovery cases that were processed in a record time by a group of lawyers and a number of financial, insurance, telecommunication and electricity companies at the Casablanca Court of First Instance. These judgments, delivered unbeknownst to convicted debtors, have also affected a number of NGOs, operating in the social and educational fields.
The process consisted of deliberately sending court notices and summons to wrong and misleading addresses and render decisions en bloc. Ongoing since at least 2017, Yabiladi found out that the same judges, lawyers, bailiffs, clerks and complainant companies are involved in said process.
Earlier in 2020 and following Yabiladi’s revelations, a series of crisis meetings were held and internal audits within certain financial and insurance institutions in Casablanca were conducted. Complaints had been lodged with the president of the bar at the head of the Casablanca Bar Council, while the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSPJ) had taken up the case.
Fewer decisions rendered in recovery cases
While the judges behind these methods had considerably slowed down their pace less than a week after our investigation, the drastic drop in the number of cases handled per day was confirmed throughout the year.
In December 2020, some names who were very active in handling record time recovery cases since 2017 have been completely absent : Samiha El Alaj, Noufissa Hazim, Amal Khaddar and Ilham El Barhoumi. The other judges Amina Redouane, Bahija Laabidi and Aziz Arsaoui presided over 14 sessions, ruling over 1,545 cases during the month. A significant drop when compared to the thousands of cases processed per day and per judge in 2019.
The judge with the biggest number of cases handled in 2019 was Judge Aziz Arsaoui. The latter handled 1,007 cases in December only. He thus rendered 136 verdicts in favor of the plaintiff companies, the creditors, and ordering their customers to pay. It is worth mentioning that a year earlier, Aziz Arsaoui alone monopolized 47.1% of the cases processed for the year 2019.
In addition to this slowdown, it is worth noting the nature of the decisions of this judge in terms of respect for procedures. For December 2020, Aziz Arsaoui thus brandished «territorial incompetence» in 91 cases and postponed 593 others for various reasons, including 319 related to the «presentation of the loan contract». The judge also preferred to wait for a «return of the recommended mail» sent by the court to the defendants in 120 cases.
Several hearings and postponements before the final verdict
Bahija Laabidi appears, for her part, in five sessions which she chaired in December 2020 and during which the judge ruled on only 270 cases. The judge rendered only 11 verdicts in favor of the plaintiff companies, and a single ruling against them. The court handed over the files to the stakeholders in 121 cases, seized or awaited the opinion of experts in 51 files and preferred to postpone 24 hearings due to the need to «present the exact address» of the parties involved in the trial.
After ruling in 24.5% of cases, Amina Redouane also eased off. Indeed, throughout the past month, the judge worked on 268 cases, in which she rendered a hundred rulings, including 76 verdicts upholding the creditor companies complaints.
However, the decisions are not all favorable to the plaintiff companies: 100 cases were postponed in December for «deliberation», 22 had their files returned to the parties of the case and 10 were transferred either to the public prosecutor's office or to other courts. During the hearings of December 31, 2019, the judge declared «territorial incompetence» in 35 cases out of a total of 41 cases.
The point of the territorial jurisdiction of the Casablanca Court was one of the main dysfunctions revealed by Yabiladi. Cases that had to be treated in the courts of other regions, where the defendants resided, were diverted to Casablanca through the use of false addresses. Rural communities far from the economic capital had been tried in Casablanca although they had never been notified by a bailiff.
According to data on the Mahakim.ma website, 81,375 recovery cases were processed en bloc between January 2017 and February 2020 without respecting the processes and the rights of the defendants. A quick calculation today allows us to state that around 20,000 individuals, companies, associations or local authorities have fallen for this process in 2020 carried within the 6th chamber in charge of commercial affairs at the Court of Casablanca.
