Proactively Publication of Legislative Data and Documents (MO0021)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
This is about strengthening access to information detained by the public
administration, by the elected institutions as well as the organizations with
public service missions, given that this is a fundamental human right which
is guaranteed by the Moroccan Constitution. Right now, there aren’t any
regulatory provisions as per defining which information are to be
published.
The House of Representatives publishes the following information on the
web site:
http://www.chambredesrepresentants.ma/fr/annuaire-parlementaire.
It is worth noting that the majority of these data are not complete.
Consequently, the civil society organizations do encounter some difficulties
when it comes to finding out such information.

What does the commitment consist of?
Voluntarist dissemination and publication of information, data and
documents produced by the House of representatives, namely debates
which take place in plenary sessions as well throughout the committees’
meetings, the reports of the parliamentary fact finding committees, the
reports of the information missions, the reports of the thematic groups and
the reports of the public policy evaluation.
Given that by virtue of the law, a national committee is set up to the head of
Government’s office, and taking into consideration the separation of
powers’ principle, a committee in charge of the implementation of the
constitutional and legislative provisions regarding the right to access
information, shall be set up to report to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives.
In a similar vein, it makes a triumphant statement about opening the archive
of the House of Representatives to the public use, and to place the digital
documents on line (more than a million six hundred thousand documents
in open data) ; documents related to the determining moments of the
national political and parliamentary life, have been published in the past,
but aren’t any more accessible nowadays since the House of Representatives
is the unique custodian of the document library.

How shall the commitment contribute to solving the public problem?
This pertains to opening, to the public, many important chapters of the
political history of the country.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
Respecting and making this universal right respected, should guarantee
equality to all in terms of having access to information. It is considered as
an indispensable condition for transparency and good governance.

Additional Information
Respecting and making respected the constitutional right of access to
information

21. Implementation of the constitutional and legislative provisions regarding the right to access information (Commitments of the Lower House of the Parliament of Morocco)

Substantial:

This commitment is the third of the commitments added to the action plan by the Lower House,one of the two chambers of Morocco’s parliament. [227] The House aimed to improve access to information on Parliament’s work by forming a committee on the right to access information and the systematic publication of data and documents related to the debates that take place during plenary sessions, reports on other parliamentary activities, and the archives of the House as open data. [228]

Mohammed Doukha, General Councilor in the House, [229] explained that, so far, the reports on debates in the parliamentary committees (for example, “Reports and Documents” section, Justice, Legislation and Human Rights Committee) [230] and the minutes of plenary debates are regularly published online and on paper in Arabic, but not in Tamazight, Morocco’s other official language. [231] The House provides live public broadcasts of government question periods, debates on finance laws, and plenary sessions of government programs. [232]

Sabrina Nassih founding member of civil society organization Green Youth, [233] views the streaming of parliamentary debates as a positive effort that improves transparency and that’s useful for her work on tracking the legislative process in certain fields. Doukha stated that, after the end of the action plan, in July 2021, the President of the House issued a decree on the establishment of a House access to information committee. [234] According to the councilor, important work is in progress: more than 3 million House documents have been electronically archived. Morocco Archives and the High Commission for Planning, Morocco’s statistics and planning body, signed two memoranda to ensure the exchange of expertise and coordination in managing the House’s archives. [235] However, the House had not published any open data by the end of the implementation period. [236]

According to Mr. Doukha, the House has digitized and published archives since the first term of the national consultative council, from 1956-1959. Documents starting from the establishment of the House in 1963 are largely available. More than 3 million pages of digital archives on parliamentary committees, legislative texts, and written questions and other documents related to parliamentary work can be consulted and used by civil servants, staff deputies, and parliamentary groups. Researchers and the public can submit a request to the archive service, under the administrative services of the House, to consult the archives on-site or receive the documents through electronic transmission, if publicly available. [237]