An awareness campaign

The Minister of Justice, Mohamed Naciri, launched a national awareness campaign in Taroudant on Monday regarding the regularisation of customary marriages, following the extension until February 2014 of the deadline set by the Family Code.The campaign follows the amendment of Article 16 of the Moudawana, which stipulates that a marriage certificate is the only legal proof of a marital union and that any action for the recognition of marriage is admissible during a five-year transitional period, starting from the date the Family Code came into force in 2004.At the end of the first phase in 2009, the number of judgments rendered had certainly increased from 6,918 in 2004 to 18,751 a year later, before reaching 23,390 in 2008. Nevertheless, some 9,000 files registered with the courts but not yet regularised were still pending, to which a large number of other cases across the Kingdom are a…