Morocco’s Constitutional Court issued Decision No. 219-23 on Tuesday stripping Mohamed El Hidaoui, a Member of Parliament from the RNI Party and President of Olympic of Safi, from his position as the representative of the local electoral district of Safi city in the House of Representatives, for alleged criminal conduct involving selling football tickets.
The Court based its decision on Article 11 of the Regulatory Act governing the Chamber of Deputies and Article 7 of Act No. 57.11.
The Court ruled that the legislative purpose of the removal mechanism is to ensure an additional means of protecting the parliamentary institution, after the expiration of the statutory time limit for challenging their election.
Judicial Police had summoned El Hidaoui upon the instructions of the prosecutor at the Casablanca appeal court, for alleged involvement in unlawful ticket scalping to do with the Morocco-France football match in December 2022. An audio recording revealed him allegedly selling two tickets at the inflated price of 12,000MAD (6,000 MAD each).
The Court decision was disclosed after the court was informed about a request registered with its Secretariat on October 20, 2022, submitted by Thami El Masqi as a legislative candidate for the September 8, 2021 election.
The Court announced the vacancy of El Hidaoui’s seat in Parliament, calling for partial elections to be held in accordance with article 91, section 5, of the Regulatory Act on the Chamber of Deputies.
Safi’s council had sought removal of El Hidaoui from his seat. El Hidaoui had previously been brought before his Party’s Disciplinary Committee in the Marrakech-Safi region for alleged misconduct.