Morocco and Algeria

In 2006, The Committee against Terrorism within the European Union (COTER) and the Swedish government engaged ILAC to train the judiciary in Algeria and Morocco in the components of the international legal anti-terrorism framework and how to reconcile the requirement of a strong judicial reaction to acts of terrorism with the fundamental principles of due process and fair trial.

ILAC engaged member organization Magna Carta, an independent research institute specializing in human rights and international law attached to the Faculty of Law at the Free University of Brussels, to implement the programme.

In March 2007, Magna Carta organized two seminars in the Moroccan capital Rabat, with the title “Human Rights and The Fight against Terrorism”, for Moroccan judges, prosecutors and judicial officials. As a follow-up to the seminars, a work- shop, which brought together European and Moroccan judges, was held in Brussels in June 2007.

The purpose of the work-shop was to promote discussions and solutions to improve a sometimes problematic climate of cooperation between judicial authorities in the EU and Morocco, on e.g. the handling of extradition requests and other terrorism-related legal issues.

The seminars and the workshop were very well received by the participants and the Moroccan government. The evaluations submitted by the participants indicated a strong desire for more training and exchanges along the same lines. 

In 2008, ILAC continued its cooperation with COTER and Magna Carta, extending the project to the Algerian judiciary.

In June, Magna Carta organized a weeklong training session in Alger for 50 Algerian judges, government officials, lawyers and police officers. The topic of the training was the international legal anti-terrorism frame work, and the particular problems that may arise in this type of investigations and trials, with a special focus on principles of due process and fair trial.

The training in Alger was followed-up with a week-long work-shop in Brussels in November, for the same target group. In addition to deepening the issues that had already been covered in Alger, the work-shop also focused on the judicial cooperation between EU and Algeria and gave the participants a possibility to experience first-hand the workings of the Belgian judicial system in anti-terrorism cases. The work-shop also included a presentation of the work of the UNODC Terrorism Prevention Branch (TPB).

It appears that this training and the personal contacts and exchanges that came with the programme have served the purpose of a mutual building of trust and confidence. Thus, one result of the programme has been a three-year agreement between Algeria and the UNODC TPB on further cooperation in building anti-terrorism legal capacity in Algeria, with the continued assistance of ILAC member organization Magna Carta.