The King’s Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, President of the Public Ministry, Moulay El Hassan Daki, said Monday in Rabat that the Presidency of the Public Ministry has always made environmental protection a priority in the implementation penal policy work.
“Since its creation, the Presidency of the Public Ministry has made environmental protection one of its priorities in the implementation of criminal policy”, proof of its involvement in the National Strategy for the Protection of environment, which HM the King wishes to translate into facts through an integrated vision with an international dimension, underlined Mr. Daki in a speech read on his behalf by the President of the Public Action and Execution Monitoring Center of criminal policy, Ahmed Ouali Alami, at the opening of an international symposium organized under the theme “The role of the Public Ministry in the protection of the environment”, in partnership with the Spanish Public Ministry.
The Presidency of the Public Ministry has worked to implement international cooperation mechanisms in the field of the environment by adhering to specialized international institutions, he continued.
The Kingdom of Morocco has been, since June 2020, an observer member within the Network of European Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE), which brings together the various public ministries in Europe, he said, recalling that this Network has awarded to the Presidency of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, on September 30, 2022 in The Hague on the sidelines of its annual meeting which coincided with the celebration of its tenth anniversary, the Award of Excellence in recognition of its efforts made since its creation in the field of environment.
The rationalization of the exploitation of natural resources is dependent on specific legal systems of behavior which frame the limits of the exploitation and rationalization of wealth and which are based on binding protective legal norms, underlined Mr. Daki, noting that Morocco has adhered to this vision by adopting a set of legal texts to ensure the preservation of natural environments and that the Presidency of the Public Ministry, since the completion of its structures, has adopted this same approach and is committed to this dynamic that the Kingdom is experiencing.
And to continue that the Presidency of the Public Prosecutor’s Office supervises the implementation of criminal policy by the Public Prosecutor’s Offices, particularly in the field of environmental protection, whether to ensure the smooth running of the procedures initiated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the management of environmental issues or the supervision of their actions in this area.
For his part, the head of the governance section of the European Union (EU) delegation to Morocco, Severin Strohal, praised the Kingdom’s ambitious strategy in the field of environmental protection, which translates into tangible progress in the field of sustainable management of forests and plastic waste, stressing that the ENPE Excellence Prize awarded to the Presidency of the Public Ministry reflects the great progress made in recent years.
He indicated that this international symposium, organized by the Presidency of the Public Ministry of Morocco and its Spanish counterpart, constitutes an appropriate opportunity for joint reflection on the means of including issues related to sustainability among the priorities of the Public Prosecutor’s Offices.
Mr. Strohal also recalled that the EU and Morocco had signed in October 2022 a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of a Morocco-EU green partnership, which constitutes a political framework that places the issues of change climate change and environmental protection at the center of political relations between the two parties. This memorandum of understanding is also seen as a joint work program to address these issues, not only in terms of government work, but also in the aspect related to legislative work.