Mandate and Tasks

The Chairman and the members of the Commission were appointed by King Mohammed VI on January 7, 2004, in Agadir. The Royal speech made at the Commission’s inauguration constitutes a guiding reference for the work of the Commission, and the basis of its approach.

Mandate and Statutes

Twenty-seven articles organized in six chapters constitute the statues of the Commission. They were published by royal Dahir approving the establishment of the Official Journal No. 5203 of April 12, 2004. They provide details on the mandate, the competences, and the internal rules of the Commission.

The Justice and Reconciliation Commission (JRC) is a national commission on truth, equity, and reconciliation. It is independent and has nonjudiciary powers to establish the truth on gross human rights violations committed in the past. It can act by means of investigation, evaluation, indemnification, research, and recommending amendments.

The temporal mandate of the Commission (rationae temporis mandate) extends from the beginning of independence to the day His Majesty the King approved the establishment of the Independent Arbitration Commission in 1999.

The Commission’s mandate (rationae materiae mandate) includes the investigation and analysis of all past events presumed to have constituted gross human rights violations between 1956 and 1999. The Commission is particularly concerned with gross human rights violations of a systematic and/or massive nature, including forced disappearances and arbitrary detentions.

The Kingdom of Morocco accords great importance to international human rights law and to international humanitarian law through its constitutional norms, and it is a party to many international instruments. With this in mind, the Commission is contributing to the universal pattern of truth and reconciliation commissions. Together, the Moroccan commission and the latter have developed steady relations of consultation and exchange.

Tasks

In view of its mandate, the Commission has the following tasks:

Unveiling the truth

• Determining the facts of human rights violations committed in the past by conducting investigations, receiving declarations and testimonies, studying official archives, and collecting all the available information and data that can be used to unveil the truth.

• Conducting investigations in cases of forced disappearances of victims whose fate remains unknown.

• Elucidating the fate of the disappeared and finding adequate solutions to cases of people whose death has been confirmed.

• Determining the responsibility of governmental entities, or others, for the violations, and the facts under investigation.

• Including the findings of research, investigations, and analyses of cases of human rights violations and the contexts in which they took place, in the final report.

• Redressing damages to the victims and/or their inheritors through material compensation, rehabilitation, social integration, and all other adequate means of reparations.

Recommendations and Guarantees of the Prevention and Nonrecurrence of Violations

As the official document, the final report will not only include the conclusions from the investigations, research, and analyses of violations and their contexts, but also recommendations for institutional changes. The latter would consist of policies and measures aimed at keeping the memory, guaranteeing the nonrecurrence of past abuses, repairing the damages caused by past violations, and reinforcing the primacy of the rule of law and the respect for human rights.

Promoting Reconciliation

The Commission will contribute to the development and the enrichment of dialogue and the establishment of the bases of reconciliation in order to support the democratic transition of the country, to build the rule of law, and to spread the values and culture of citizenship and human rights.