The Constitution of Morocco is the Basic Law of the Kingdom of Morocco. The constitution defines Morocco as an Islamic constitutional monarchy and lays out the fundamental rights of Moroccan citizens, it also defines the basis and structures of

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

, the council of ministers, and the

parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. The first Constitution of Morocco was adopted in 1962, 6 years after the country regained

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

. From and following that event, the King Mohammed V worked for the establishment of political and constitutional institutions. The National Advisory Council originally created the legislation text governing public freedoms and freedom of expression, known as the Dahir, which was enacted on November 15, 1959. In 1960, the Constitutional Council was established, and the first Constitution was proposed on November 18, 1962. This draft was ratified through a referendum on December 7, 1962, and was finally promulgated one week later, on December 14.

2011 referendum

A 2011 Moroccan constitutional referendum was held in

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

on 1 July 2011. It was called in response to the protests that took place earlier in the year demanding democratic reforms. A commission was to draft proposals by June 2011. A draft released on 17 June foresaw the following changes: * Requiring the

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

to name a

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

from the largest party in

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

* Handing a number of rights from the monarch to the PM, including

dissolution of parliament The dissolution of a legislative assembly (or parliament) is the simultaneous termination of service of all of its members, in anticipation that a successive legislative assembly will reconvene later with possibly different members. In a democracy ...

* Allowing parliament to grant

amnesty Amnesty () is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of people who are subject to trial but have not yet be ...

, previously a privilege of the monarch * Making

Tamazight The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who ar ...

an official language alongside

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

The changes were reportedly approved by 98.49% of voters. Despite protest movements calling for a boycott of the referendum, government officials claimed turnout was 72.65%.Morocco approves King Mohammed's constitutional reforms
BBC, 2 July 2011 Following the referendum, early parliamentary elections were then held on 25 November 2011, which the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party won.

Results of 2011 referendum

References

External links

*
Full text of the 2011 constitution in EnglishPDF version

Full text of the 2011 constitution of Morocco in Berber and Arabic

Full text of the 1996 constitution in Arabic, English, and French

* {{Moroccan elections

Government of Morocco Law of Morocco Politics of Morocco 2011 documents

2011 referendum

Results of 2011 referendum

See also

References

External links