HIBAPRESS – Abdellatif Baraka
Judicial controversy continues regarding the legality of imposing registration fees for doctoral programs, with varying rulings issued by administrative courts, reflecting the complexity of this file and the entanglement of its legal and constitutional dimensions.
In this context, the Administrative Court of Appeal in Fez issued a decision to annul an initial ruling issued by the Administrative Court in Oujda, which had responded to a request to suspend the implementation of a decision to impose final registration fees for doctoral programs at Mohammed I University in Oujda.
The court ruled to accept the appeal in form and, in substance, to annul the appealed ruling and to reject the request to suspend the implementation, considering that the legal conditions framing this type of request, foremost of which are the elements of seriousness and urgency, are not available in the case.
This decision comes in the context of a non-unified judicial trend, as a number of administrative courts had previously ruled to suspend the implementation of similar decisions, before the courts of appeal moved to annul some of them, which deepens the legal debate about the limits of the universities' authority to impose fees on this program.
The court based its decision on the fact that the administrative decision in question does not have an urgent nature that justifies suspending its implementation, especially with the possibility of remedying its legal effects later in the event of a ruling of annulment, which negates the condition of urgency.
Observers believe that the continued issuance of varying judgments in this file will revive the issue of free higher education and its limits, as well as the principle of equality among students, in exchange for the powers of university institutions in organizing access and registration.
Between this and that, the final decision remains subject to what the courts will decide in the subject matter lawsuits, pending the unification of judicial interpretation regarding one of the most controversial files within the Moroccan university.
