Minister of Justice, Mr. Abdellatif Ouahbi has revealed that a Ministry special committee is engaged in preparing special alternative punishments, separated from criminal code provisions and from penal code procedures, for persons detained upon hooliganism at sports stadiums.
Minister Ouahbi stated in his response to a written question submitted by the popular movement party at the House, that the goal from reviewing the provisions of penal code bill is to establish alternative depriving-freedom punishments for adults and juveniles alike; and this is for the sake of public interest.
Minister Ouahbi has clarified that a person involved in hooliganism could be banned from leaving a specific place at specific moments, or should be banned from attending sports stadiums and his movements could be monitored electronically, or he should cover for costs of damages resulted in crimes as an alternative to freedom-depriving punishments.
The Minister has emphasized that the project of creating a criminality national observatory is among the major big projects the Ministry is working on its implementation and which would allow the customizing of appropriate means to stand up against growing hooliganism at sports stadiums; those regulatory means will provide a clear roadmap for criminal policy; pointing out that the Justice Ministry has got informed about some international experiences in the field of hooliganism in some countries which have acquired a large experience in confronting hooliganism and have set up a practical vision to stop it.
The government official has confirmed that legal punitive approach is not sufficient to confront this phenomenon; yet there should be a kind of coordination among the state’s different political bodies, with a focus on media awareness campaigns about the importance of sports and its noble objectives. Minister Ouahbi said that files, being presented to magistrate following the detention of hooliganism events at Moulay Abdellah stadium in Rabat, following the soccer play between FAR and MAS, “are exclusively handled by the justice, in the context of independence of judicial power”.
Minister Ouahbi has referred to the fact that hooliganism is among the Justice Ministry’s priorities and is engaged in establishing penal policy at a practical level through bills which will include the rules of criminality and punishments.