Moroccan Associations Test the Commitment of Political Parties Participating in the Elections

By Othman Makhoun

As the legislative elections approach, the issue of the filing receipt is returning to the forefront of civic debate as a daily test of the extent to which constitutional guarantees have been transformed into rights that can actually be exercised.

A “filing receipt” may appear to be a minor administrative document hardly worthy of becoming a political issue in electoral campaigns. However, for an association seeking to open a bank account, sign a partnership agreement, rent premises, or apply for funding, this piece of paper or document—the “key”—determines the dividing line between the association’s effective and legal existence and an existence that remains dependent on the administration’s compliance with and respect for the legal text. This is what has prompted a large number of Moroccan associations to place the issue of freedom to establish associations before the parties competing in the legislative elections scheduled for 23 September 2026, calling on them to transform general discourse about civil society and freedom of association into measurable legislative and administrative commitments.

This initiative comes within a charged political and social context in which electoral competition intersects with a broader debate over the performance of institutions, freedoms, and confidence in political action. Even the lawyers’ protest against the new law regulating the profession, which has continued since 15 June according to statements by professional bodies, reflects the sensitivity of the relationship between the legal regulation of public space and the independence of those operating within it. Yet the issue of associations remains different in nature: it does not concern a specific professional or social group so much as it concerns the right of women and men citizens to organize voluntarily in order to defend a cause, provide a service, monitor a public policy, or participate in public debate.

In terms of the legal texts, Morocco’s legislative framework appears clear and leaves little room for interpretation or dispute. The 2011 Constitution explicitly and clearly recognizes the freedom to establish civil society associations and carry out their activities, while also assigning them roles in participatory democracy and in the preparation, monitoring, and evaluation of decisions and public policies. On the other hand, there is the Dahir of 15 November 1958 regulating the right to establish associations, which is based on a fundamental principle: the establishment of an association is subject to a declaration system rather than a system of prior authorization. In principle, this means that a citizen does not require discretionary approval from the administration in order to establish an association. Likewise, the dissolution or suspension of an association is not supposed to result from an administrative decision, but is subject to the judiciary.

The paradox begins when the law moves from paper to the administrative departments under the Ministry of Interior. A synthesis report prepared by Espace Associatif documents different and recurring forms of difficulty that have come to affect almost all associations, such as refusing to receive a file without issuing a written decision, failing to stamp the association’s copy, delaying the provisional receipt, making the final receipt conditional on investigations with no defined timeframe, requesting documents not stipulated by law, or applying different requirements from one administrative district, local authority, or prefecture/province to another. The same report also indicates that human rights and advocacy associations, associations working on sensitive issues, local branches, and rural or recently established associations may be more exposed to these problems and obstacles.

Reference: Freedom to Establish Associations in Morocco and the Legal, Financial and Tax Environment Governing Their Work: Obstacles and Prospects for Reform – A Synthesis Reading of Legal Texts, Legal Documents and Literature Published on the Subject. Sources updated: 23 July 2026.

This does not mean that all Moroccan administrative authorities behave in the same way, nor does the existence of these cases suffice to establish the existence of a unified or systematic policy of restriction. The synthesis report emphasizes territorial disparities and the diversity of practices and interpretations. However, it is the repetition and recurrence of the problem that gives it a broader dimension. A constitutional right presupposes that the conditions for exercising it should be broadly similar in the capital, Rabat, in cities such as Oujda or Agadir, or in any remote village, rather than changing according to the employee or administrative department receiving the association’s legal file.

Returning to Article 5 of the Law on Associations (Dahir of 15 November 1958), once the procedures have been fulfilled, it requires the immediate issuance of a stamped and dated provisional receipt, followed by a final receipt within the statutory period of sixty days. The problem, however, is that although the receipt is not an authorization to establish the association, in practice it has become a document that the association needs when dealing with banks, the administration, donors, territorial authorities, and the owners of halls and public spaces hosting the association’s events and activities. Withholding or delaying the document may therefore not theoretically invalidate the association, but in practice it can disrupt its activities, its bank account, partnerships and funding, and its ability to establish the official capacity of its representatives.

This gap is not merely a conclusion reached by activists. In one of its reports, the National Human Rights Council also recorded complaints concerning refusals to receive declarations, failures to issue provisional or final receipts, the renewal of executive bodies, suspension of activities, and difficulties in using public halls. The administrative judiciary has also intervened on more than one occasion to provide redress to associations in cases of administrative abuse. Among the precedents cited in this regard is a 2008 ruling by the Administrative Court of Agadir confirming the administration’s obligation to issue the receipt, and a 2007 decision by the Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Council that considered refusal to issue it a service-related administrative fault that could open the way to financial compensation. In 2014, the administrative judiciary in Rabat also annulled a decision prohibiting a human rights seminar.

However, resorting to the courts does not solve everything. If proceedings take months while an association is preparing for an activity scheduled for the following week, judicial protection may be legally sound but practically too late. It may also be difficult to prove that the administration refused to receive the file when no written refusal is issued. For this reason, part of civic action has begun to move from defending individual cases after they occur toward demanding changes to the procedural rules themselves.

This is clearly reflected in the advocacy memorandum addressed to the parties participating in the September 2023 elections. The signatory associations do not merely call for “respect for freedom of association”; they propose specific tools, such as recognizing a bailiff’s report or an electronic notification as evidence producing legal effects when the administration refuses to issue the receipt. They also propose establishing a national electronic filing platform that would immediately issue a receipt bearing the date, time, and reference number, and prohibiting authorities from requesting documents not specified in published laws.

The demands contained in the advocacy memorandum go further, proposing a rapid and independent mechanism for receiving associations’ complaints, standardizing procedures nationwide through a binding guide and training the officials responsible for receiving files, and publishing periodic data on the number of establishment and renewal files, receipts issued, cases of delay, complaints, and their outcomes. The memorandum also calls on political parties not to allow their interest in the issue to end with the electoral campaign, but rather to use parliamentary questions, committees, fact-finding missions, and public policy evaluations to monitor implementation of the law.

The significance of these initiatives extends beyond the filing receipt itself. They reveal an evolution in the tools used by Moroccan civil society: from protesting an individual decision to documenting cases; from limiting action to administrative complaints to resorting to the judiciary; and from merely compiling general data to formulating legislative and digital proposals and measurable indicators. These initiatives also reveal the limits of such advocacy. Associations can file a lawsuit, submit a memorandum, or mobilize public opinion, but they cannot, on their own, standardize and regulate the conduct of thousands of administrative departments or guarantee the rapid enforcement of judgments.

For this reason, at its core, the issue appears to be less about a conflict between the “administration” and “civil society” than about the quality and credibility of the rule of law itself. Associations are required to uphold transparency, good governance, and respect for the law, as the memorandum explicitly acknowledges. Yet the same logic requires the administration to comply with deadlines, procedures, requirements to provide reasons, and published rules. A freedom that requires a struggle every time to obtain a document proving it remains an incomplete and unstable freedom.

In conclusion, the associations that initiated the preparation of the advocacy memorandum on freedom of association seek to move the issue of freedom of associative action from the realm of scattered complaints to the heart of political and institutional debate. They do so by questioning political parties and other official institutions about their position on practices that the associations consider administrative abuse affecting a right clearly guaranteed by the Constitution. The question raised by this initiative is not merely about obtaining temporary electoral promises, but about the extent to which political parties and institutions, each from its position within Parliament or government, are prepared to fulfill their constitutional role in ensuring respect for the law and standardizing administrative practice. Ultimately, one of the simplest signs of the rule of law will remain that an association meeting the legal requirements can obtain its filing receipt through an ordinary and clear administrative procedure, rather than through a Sisyphean process in which women and men citizens are forced to seek an intermediary or someone to intercede on their behalf, stage a protest, or resort to the courts in order to obtain a right that the law has already granted them.