Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:12:34.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interpreting the 2004 Moroccan Family Law: Street-Level Bureaucrats, Women's Groups, and the Preservation of Multiple Normativities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Dörthe Engelcke
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A decade after celebrating Morocco's 2004 family law as a social revolution, women's groups became dismayed by the persistence of minor marriage, polygyny, and marriage guardianship. Conventional explanations for why statutory law reform often fails to produce intended outcomes depart from the concept of the homogeneous state, pointing to insufficient enforcement mechanisms and cultural resistance to the new law within society. Arguing against this conceptualization, this article adopts the state-in-society approach. It compares how two types of street-level bureaucrats and secular and Islamist women's groups have engaged with the 2004 law. It finds that different groups have emphasized and rejected different categories and norms of the law. Street-level bureaucrats' interpretations have sometimes overlapped with those of civil society actors. The state is therefore not enforcing one normative order against cultural resistance from society; instead, different state actors are themselves actively involved in the production and preservation of multiple normativities.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , Fall 2018 , pp. 1514 - 1541
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Alami M'chichi, Houria, Malika Benradi, Aziz Chaker, and Mouaqit, Mohamed, eds. 2003. Féminin-masculin: La marche vers l'égalité au Maroc, 1993–2003. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.Google Scholar
Aldashev, Gani, Chaara, Imane, Platteau, Jean-Philippe, and Wahhaj, Zaki. 2012a. Using the Law to Change the Custom. Journal of Development Economics 97 (2): 182–200.Google Scholar
Aldashev, Gani, Chaara, Imane, Platteau, Jean-Philippe, and Wahhaj, Zaki 2012b. Formal Law as a Magnet to Reform Custom. Economic Development and Cultural Change 60 (4): 795–828.Google Scholar
Ali, Shaheen S. 2000c. Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law: Equal Before Allah, Unequal Before Man? The Hague: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar
Al-Moussali, Jamila. 2011. Al-ḥaraka al-nisā’iyya bi-l-maghrib al-mu‘āṣir. Rabat: Moroccan Centre for Contemporary Studies and Research.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc, ed. 2007. Implementation of the CEDAW Convention: Non-Governmental Organisations' Shadow Report to the Third and the Fourth Periodic Report of the Moroccan Government.Google Scholar
Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc 2012. Dalīl marja‘ī li-l-takwīn ḥawla qīma wa-mabādi’ wa-ḥuqūq al-insān. Rabat: Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc.Google Scholar
Benradi, Malika, M'chichi, Houria Alami, Ounnir, Abdellah, Mouaqit, Mohamed, Boukaïssi, Fatima Z., and Zeidguy, Rabha, ed. 2007. Le code de la famille: Perceptions et pratique judiciaire. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Morocco. http://www.fes.org.ma/common/pdf/publications_pdf/code_famille/code_de_la_famille.pdf (accessed March 6, 2017).Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987. The Force of Law: Toward a Sociology of the Juridical Field. Hastings Law Journal 38:805–53.Google Scholar
Bras, Jean-Philippe. 2007. La réforme du code de la famille au Maroc et en Algérie: quelles avancées pour la démocratie? Critique international 37:93–125.Google Scholar
Buskens, Léon. 2003. Recent Debates on Family Law Reform in Morocco: Islamic Law as Politics in an Emerging Public Sphere. Islamic Law and Society 10 (1): 70–131.Google Scholar
Buskens, Léon. 2008 . Tales According to the Book: Professional Witnesses (‘udul) as Cultural Brokers in Morocco. In Narratives of Truth in Islamic Law, ed. Dupret, Baudouin, Moors, Annelies, and Drieskens, Barbara, 143–61. London/New York: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Cavatorta, Francesco, and Dalmasso, Emanuela. 2009. Liberal Outcomes Through Undemocratic Means: The Reform of the Code de statut personnel in Morocco. Journal of Modern African Studies 47 (4): 487–506.Google Scholar
Dupret, Baudouin, Maurits, Berger, and al-Zwaini, Laila, eds. 1999. Legal Pluralism in the Arab World. Boston, MA: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar
El, Mekkaoui, Naji, Rajaâ. 2009. La Moudawanah: Le Référentiel et le Conventionnel en Harmonie. Rabat: Editions & Impressions Bouregreg.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, and Silbey, Susan S. 1998. The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Falk Moore, Sally. 1973. Law and Social Change: The Semi-Autonomous Social Field as an Appropriate Subject of Study. Law & Society Review 7 (4): 719–46.Google Scholar
Fédération de La Ligue Démocratique des Droits des Femmes. 2007. Droit des femmes et code de la famille (après 4 ans d'application). Casablanca: Fédération de La Ligue Démocratique des Droits des Femmes.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M. 1977. A History of American Law. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Gray, Doris H. 2013. Beyond Feminism and Islamism: Gender and Equality in North Africa. London/New York: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Grossman, Joel B., and Grossman, Mary H. 1971. Law and Change in Modern America. Pacific Palisades, CA: Goodyear Pub. Co.Google Scholar
Hertogh, Marc. 2004. A “European” Conception of Legal Consciousness: Rediscovering Eugen Ehrlich. Journal of Law and Society 31 (4): 457–81.Google Scholar
Jaabouk, Mohammed. 2015. Maroc: Un nouveau délai de 5 ans accordé pour la reconnaissance des mariages par la Fatiha. Yabiladi, December 9. https://www.yabiladi.com/articles/details/40848/maroc-nouveau-delai-accorde-pour.html (accessed April 11, 2017).Google Scholar
King Muhammad VI. 2015. Speech at the Opening of the First Session of the Fourth Legislative Year of the Eighth Legislative Period of the Parliament. Rabat, October 8. http://www.maroc.ma/fr/discours-royaux/texte-int%C3%A9gral-du-discours-de-sm-le-roi-%C3%A0-louverture-la-premi%C3%A8re-session-de-la-4-%C3%A8me (accessed May 18, 2015).Google Scholar
Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-Level Bureucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual and Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Maghraoui, Driss. 2009. The Strengths and Limits of Religious Reforms in Morocco. Mediterranean Politics 14 (2): 195–211.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. 2016. Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mariami, Karim. 2004. Le nouveau Code de la Famille: un acquis qui ouvre d'immenses chantiers. Libération, March 8.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally E. 1990. Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness Among Working-Class Americans. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally E. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Micouleau-Sicault, Marie-Claire. 2000. Les médecins français au Maroc (1912–1956). Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Migdal, Joel S. 2001. State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. 2007. How the Door of Ijtihad was Opened and Closed: A Comparative Analysis of Recent Family Law Reform in Iran and Morocco. Washington and Lee Law Review 64 (4): 1499–1511.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 1991. The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics. American Political Science Review 85 (1): 77–96.Google Scholar
Moroccan Ministry of Justice. 2012. Marja‘iyyāt al-wa‘ā’if wal-kafā’āt: musā‘id ijtimā‘i qa‘ā’ī. Rabat: Moroccan Ministry of Justice.Google Scholar
Pound, Roscoe. 1923. Interpretations of Legal History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rabita Mohammadia des Ouléma du Maroc. 2010. Musawwaghat takwīn al-‘ulamā’ al-wusa‘ā’. Rabat: Rabita Mohammadia des Ouléma du Maroc.Google Scholar
Sadiqi, Fatima. 2008. The Central Role of the Family Law in the Moroccan Feminist Movement. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 35 (3): 325–37.Google Scholar
Sadiqi, Fatima, and Ennaji, Moha. 2006. The Feminization of Public Space: Women's Activism, the Family Law, and Social Change in Morocco. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 2 (2): 86–114.Google Scholar
Salime, Zakia. 2011. Between Feminism and Islam: Human Rights and Sharia Law in Morocco. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, and Kearns, Thomas R. 1993. Law in Everyday Life. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sater, James N. 2009. Reforming the Rule of Law in Morocco: Multiple Meanings and Problematic Realities. Mediterranean Politics 14 (2): 181–93.Google Scholar
Tozy, Mohamed. 1999. Monarchie et islam politique au Maroc. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.Google Scholar
Tozy, Mohamed. 2013. Des oulémas frondeurs à la bureaucratie du « croire ». Les péripéties d'une restructuration annoncée du champ religieux au Maroc. In La bureaucratisation néolibérale, ed. Hibou, Béatrice, 129–54. Paris: La Découverte.Google Scholar
Tremlett, Giles. 2004. Morocco Boosts Women's Rights. Guardian, January 20. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/21/gender.gilestremlett (accessed August 11, 2016).Google Scholar
Vago, Steven. 2012. Law and Society. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Welchman, Lynn. 2007. Women and Muslim Family Laws in Arab States: A Comparative Overview of Textual Development and Advocacy. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Wuerth, Oriana. 2005. The Reform of the Moudawana: The Role of Women's Civil Society Organisations in Changing the Personal Status Code in Morocco. HAWWA 3 (3): 309–33.Google Scholar
Žvan Elliott, Katja. 2014. Morocco and its Women's Rights Struggle: A Failure to Live Up to its Progressive Image. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 10 (2): 1–30.Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

Dahir portant loi no 1-57-379. Family code book III. 1957. In Bulletin Officiel, no 2387 (May 25, 1958), 1160–1163.Google Scholar
Dahir portant loi no 1-67-343. Family code books I and II. 1957. In Bulletin Officiel, no 2378 (May 23, 1958), 806–11.Google Scholar
Dahir no 1-04-22. Family code. 2004. In Bulletin Officiel, no 5358. (October 6, 2005), 667–701.Google Scholar
Dahir no. 1-05-210. Erigeant l'association de la Rabita des Ouléma du Maroc en fondation d'utilité publique sous la dénomination de la « Rabita Mohamadia des Ouléma ». 2006. In Bulletin Officiel, no. 5418 (4 May 2006), 809–11.Google Scholar
Dahir portant loi no 1-93-347. Amendments to the family code. 1993. In Bulletin Officiel, no 4231 (December 1, 1993), 664–65.Google Scholar

Interviews Cited

Director of the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches en matière des Valeurs at the Rabita Mohammedia des Oulémas du Maroc. Interviewed May 2, 2012 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Director of the family and women's section at the Conseil Supérieur des Oulémas. Interviewed May 7, 2012 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Employee at the Ministry of Justice. Interviewed April 19, 2012 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Former ‘adl and ‘ālim of the Rabita, president of the ‘ulamā’ of Casablanca. Interviewed October 3, 2013 in Casablanca.Google Scholar
Former president of the Mountada al-Zahra forum. Interviewed April 26, 2012 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Instructor at ADFM. Interviewed October 1, 2013 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Judge at the family tribunal of Salé. Interviewed October 8, 2013 in Salé.Google Scholar
Program coordinator at UN WOMEN. Interviewed October 3, 2013 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Project coordinator UN Women. Interviewed April 19, 2012 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Social assistant at the family court in Rabat. Interviewed September 25, 2012 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Social assistant at the family court in Rabat. Interviewed September 30, 2013 in Rabat.Google Scholar
Social assistant of the family court in Tangier. Interviewed April 30, 2012 in Tangier.Google Scholar
Two social assistants at the family tribunal in Casablanca. Interviewed April 27, 2012 in Casablanca.Google Scholar