The position of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) on the current situation of the press and publishing sector is clear. For him, the bill to create a Provisional Commission in charge of managing the affairs of the press and publishing sector reflects the failure of the Executive regarding the National Press Council (CNP) and must be withdrawn immediately .
While the Executive has decided to look into a draft law establishing a Provisional Commission responsible for managing the affairs of the press and publishing sector, now that the legal mandate of the CNP and its extension have ended on April 4, the PJD decided to rebel against the implementation of the new text.
In a press release, the Lamp party argued that this bill reflects the government’s failure to apply the law relating to the CNP and its inability to organize elections in a timely manner in an organized sector whose voters are known, despite an additional six months to do so.
For the party, the appointment of a provisional commission is ” a declaration of exceptional cases in this vital sector for democratic construction, and represents an attack on the image of our country and its course in terms of freedom of the press and expression“.
The PJD, through the pen of its Secretary General, Abdelilah Benkirane, specifies that the powers granted to the Provisional Commission go beyond the competences constitutionally and legally mandated for the self-regulation of the profession.
It is, according to the text, a violation of the exclusive competences of Parliament in the field of journalism and publishing, without forgetting the creation of the project of two legal systems in this sector. ” The first is the law on the National Press Council and the second is the law on the provisional commissions, which is an unacceptable duplication“, denounces the party.
According to the SG, the composition of the Commission has been partly tailor-made, as it includes a president and members of the National Council, whose mandate expired at the beginning of this month after an extension. This extension, he believes, has resulted in the loss of the quality of the President of the Council and the rest of the members, and therefore they cannot be appointed to the Provisional Commission in a capacity that they no longer have.
This raises fundamental questions about the existence of other objectives of this project related to the preservation of material and personal assets and sacrificing for this reason, the achievements in the field of freedom of the press and expression and the organization of the profession on a democratic basis, deplores the PJDist.
And to add: This project perpetuates the circumvention by the government and its majority of the explicit constitutional and legal provisions which stipulate the need to organize democratic and transparent elections, after the failed maneuver to propose a bill, a scandal to change the electoral system of the Council , a unique case which derogates from the principle of election in force with all the professional bodies organized in our country, such as lawyers, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, accountants and others“.
To this end, the PJD demands the immediate withdrawal of this project and expresses in particular its total rejection, because, it argues, the appropriate legal solution is the organization, without delay, of elections under the responsibility of the commission instituted by the current law of the Council and headed by a judge.