Minister of Justice Mr. Abdellatif Ouahbi from Fez: “There’s no justice without punishment.. We won’t renounce punishment but we’d like to improve it”

“There’s no justice without punishment, we won’t renounce punishment but we’d like to improve it”, with this statement, Minister of Justice Mr. Abdellatif Ouahbi opened the meeting organized last Friday, October 27, 2023, by the center for public dialogue and modern studies in Fez, under the topic “Alternative punishments in the core of the justice reform workshop.”

Minister Ouahbi has talked about the history of alternative punishments considered as the oldest freedom-depriving punishments and as it has been confirmed by penal traditions which used to manage and deal with violence inside tribal society (especially defamation, deportation, fining, exclusion and compensation..), informing that freedom-depriving punishments emerged since the mid-ninetieth century.

Minister Ouahbi said that “it’s unfair to arrest a drugs-addicted child and put him in jail with criminals”, stating that “we should not sentence a drugs-addicted person to imprisonment because he is sick and his place should be at a hospital for treatment”. The Minister considered that it’s also unfair to put in jail children who are behind soccer hooliganism and therefore undermine their future.

Minister Ouahbi has made clear that alternative prison punishments will be controlled by government regulations where the judge will have the right to choose and decide the issuing of appropriate sentences convenient with the criminal status in the context of discretionary power.

Among other crimes excluded from the application of alternative punishments, remain the crimes related to state security and terrorism, theft, treachery, bribery or abuse of power and embezzlement of public funds, money laundry, military crimes, international drugs trafficking, and trafficking of psychotropic drugs, human body organs trafficking and sexual trafficking of minors or persons in handicapped condition.