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Casablanca — A UN delegation and Syrian advisory members visited Morocco’s National Human Rights Council in Rabat on Tuesday to learn from Morocco’s experience in transitional justice, which UN officials have described as a successful and landmark model in the history of transitional justice.
The meeting brought together CNDH President Amina Bouayach with Carla Quintana Osuna, UN Assistant Secretary General and head of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic. Quintana, who hails from Mexico, previously served as national commissioner for the search for missing persons and later as head of the Federal Public Defender’s Office for Victims in Mexico.
Members of the institution’s advisory board also took part in the visit. The board was created to ensure the participation of families of missing persons, survivors, and civil society in the institution’s work.
The visit came after earlier UN praise for Morocco’s experience. In December 2024, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told Morocco’s Parliament that the country’s transitional justice process was a distinguished and landmark experience in the history of transitional justice.
Morocco presents its transitional justice experience
During Tuesday’s meeting, Quintana described Morocco’s experience as successful. A Syrian advisory board member, herself a former victim and a representative of victims’ families, said they were proud of Morocco’s transitional justice path, citing its political will, civil society role, and the participation of victims’ families and women.
Bouayach said transitional justice in Morocco was a national process aimed at recognizing victims, establishing the truth, and looking toward the future. She said the Moroccan experience came from a voluntary sovereign decision and a social conviction to break with past human rights violations.
The CNDH said its role in this process has been central. The council was behind the recommendation to create the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, provided technical and logistical support to its members, and was later tasked by King Mohammed VI with following up on the implementation of its recommendations.
Bouayach said Morocco’s process did not stop at truth-seeking, individual and collective reparations, and recognition of victims and rights holders. It also focused on reconciliation, memory preservation, reform, and guarantees of non-repetition.
She added that the experience formed part of broader reforms Morocco has seen in the 21st century. These reforms, she said, helped shape a Moroccan approach based on participation, consultation, consensus, and solutions adapted to the national context.
Bouayach said the recommendations later contributed to constitutional, institutional, and legal guarantees, including in the 2011 constitutional reform, moving Morocco from dealing with past violations toward prevention, constitutional protection of rights, and an explicit ban on serious human rights violations.
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