The President of the National Association of Lawyers of Morocco, Mohamed Lahbib Benchikh, has addressed an open letter to Fernando Hernández Gómez, President of the International Union of Lawyers (UIA), at its headquarters in Paris. In the letter, he raises concerns over what he views as a setback to the independence of the legal profession, in light of the draft law regulating the practice of law in the Kingdom.
An uproar has started among lawyers, bailiffs, judges and companies involved in the industrialization of justice and the privatization of the Casablanca court of First Instance, simply known now as #MahkamaGate.
After Yabiladi revealed that more than 81,375 recovery cases were handled by a Casablanca court in almost record periods and unbeknownst to debtors, the second part of the investigation unveils the names of the lawyers, judges and creditors involved in most of these cases. Most of the data featured in the paper is available on courts portal mahakim.ma.