Access To Justice minister.19 quently scheduled for November 2011.20


Parliamentary elections were subse- There are


open issues as to how much power has actually been ceded or whether it is fair to say, as some observers did before the reforms, that “Morocco is often described as a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral Parliament” where the “King holds es- sentially all political power.”21


Nonetheless, the King evidently attempted to “get ahead of the Arab Spring” through the constitutional reforms in recognition of the so-called February 20, 2011 demonstrations or “movement” in Morocco22 and overall regional unrest, including the overthrow of governments in Egypt and Tunisia.23


(Protesters


in Morocco had “been organizing periodic dem- onstrations beginning on February 20 – hence the name, February 20 movement.”24


The term “Arab 24


Spring” has been attached to various uprisings or demonstrations, large and small, throughout the region.) The King announced he would advance constitutional reforms in a speech given on March 9, 2011, laying out the underlying principles, shortly after the protests began. How effective these re- forms will be in removing barriers to access to justice, of course, depends on the manner of their implementation.25


As the King himself observed in


a July 30, 2011 Throne Day Speech, “[N]o constitu- tion, however flawless it may be, is an end in itself. It is rather a basis upon which a new political pact can be built and capitalized on to uphold the rule of law, human rights and good governance, and bolster development, through efficient, credible institutions.”26


a formula three times (repudiation) for any reason or no reason; the historic difficulty of women being able to seek a divorce; and the problems of non- Muslims applying Shariah law within the context of the Israeli personal status system, as he ques- tioned the judges’ knowledge of the law and cultur- ally specific concerns of Muslim families. Professor Sezgin further observed some Muslim reluctance to attend such courts for religious or political rea- sons; language barriers for non-Hebrew speakers in Israeli courts where the official language is He- brew, leading to further access problems; and ac- cording to Professor Sezgin, the multiple courts in Israel for Jews, Christians and Muslims, leading to forum shopping between civil and religious courts and even to some citizens regarding particular courts as illegitimate and declining to participate.27 He also commented on the practical inaccessibility of no-fault divorce in Egypt despite the legislation enacting it because judges look askance at wom- en who seek it, according to Professor Sezgin, as “lewd and Westernized;” and the limits to even lib- eral interpretations of religious law.


However, the constitutional reforms


appear to be one example of how, in particular in- stances, efforts to forestall unrest may yield some more progressive results than some revolutions do, as referenced by Yasmeen Hassan later in the panel (citing specific examples).


Shifting away from Morocco to regional access to justice concerns generally, Professor Sezgin ob- served the harshness of the custom prevalent in a number of majority Muslim countries of permitting a man to divorce his wife non-judicially by reciting


Panelist Adnan Zulfiqar, whose specialties include Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Is- lamic Law, observed the problems affecting “mar- ginalized majorities” in various countries following revolutions and “constituency politics” in parts of the post-Arab Spring world, which may lead to the deferring of women’s rights initiatives as part of political trade-offs. Such marginalized majori- ties include, among others, conservative Islamic voices that may have considered their identities suppressed as a result of interaction with secu- lar states: for instance, “religious Sunni men who were disproportionately the ones imprisoned and tortured under Mubarak” and, in another context, the “Shia majority in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” Where states were governed by authoritarian lead- ers, the voice of the leader rather than constituen- cies was dominant. (According to Mr. Zulfiqar, “if the leader wanted it done, it would be done or at least rubberstamped.”)


ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 2 » December 2011


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