HIBAPRESS – Rabat
The government council is expected to present, tomorrow, Thursday, a draft decree-law providing for the establishment of a temporary administrative committee to manage the affairs of the National Press Council, pending the completion of the procedure for ratifying draft law No. 026.25 related to its reorganization, after the Constitutional Court's decision ruling the unconstitutionality of some provisions of the previous text.
The project stipulates, according to the available data about its contents, the formation of a committee to manage the transitional phase, which will include members from outside the journalistic body and be chaired by a judge, with the assignment of powers that include organizational and disciplinary aspects, including those related to the professional press card. This trend comes in the context of a disagreement over the most appropriate formula for managing the transitional phase between the end of the previous term and the completion of the new legislative path. It was proposed to keep the current temporary committee to conduct business until the law is issued, but the option that was adopted tended towards establishing a new committee with a different composition. The project sparked a discussion in professional and legal circles regarding its nature and the limits of its jurisdiction, especially with regard to assigning reporting tasks to a committee that does not emerge from a direct professional election. This includes powers related to professional ethics and granting a press card, which are specializations that have been linked, since the establishment of the Council, to the philosophy of self-regulation. Including a judge in the composition of a committee of an administrative nature also raises legal questions related to the principle of separation of powers and the limits of the executive authority's intervention in managing a body whose public nature the administrative judiciary has previously confirmed in a number of rulings. Eyes are turning to what the government discussion about the project will lead to, in light of the divergence of readings regarding the impact of this transitional formula on the independence of the National Press Council and on the model of self-regulation of the profession during the next phase.
