Nouakchott
Judges from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and Libya are advocating increased integration and legal reform throughout the Maghreb region.
Meeting in Nouakchott last week for the Maghreb Union (UMA) judiciary committee session, they discussed the economic and social advantages to greater co-operation.
“The support and development of the judicial and legal dimension between Maghreb countries would be good for the development of trade,” UMA Secretary-General Habib Ben Yahia told the 10-member committee and other legal observers on April 15th.
Convergence “between components of the federal system, both at the judiciary and legal levels”, he said, “will make them keep pace with the economic, social and cultural transformations witnessed by union states in light of globalisation”.
He pointed out that a role was given to the judiciary in the drafting of the Maghreb arbitration system. The system will be in line with the provisions of the convention to promote investment between regional countries with regard to judicial guarantees and settling disputes.
“The establishment of a Maghreb system framed within developed principles and rules will help resolve issues… such as organised crime, terrorist activities and drug smuggling,” Ben Yahia said.
“In addition, economic and trade relations between the countries of the union and the world are expanding at a fast pace and are suffering from many disagreements and disputes.”
Judges and Maghreb legal experts participating in the meeting discussed several legal projects in order to make the necessary adjustments. They hope that they will be presented to the relevant ministerial councils and to the next session of the UMA Council of the Presidency.
According to legal analyst Bashir Ould Mohamed, the gathering was a step on the road to closer judicial co-operation between Maghreb countries, especially in the field of standardisation of laws governing cross-border crime.
“I think that the primary beneficiary will be peoples before governments, because they are the ones who usually pay the price for the impunity of criminals who circumvent laws to carry out their crimes,” he told Magharebia.
For Moulay Ould Sidi Mohamed, a graduate student in law, “emerging challenges require a unified vision and goals by Maghreb countries, not just laws”.
Even “a slight difference in the laws of these countries”, he said, can end up “halting or obstructing a case concerning a large group of people “.
“This is no longer acceptable in today’s world,” he said.
