IN THE COURTS OF THE NATIONS - DataSpace - Princeton ...

the courts, begun in 1913, the French set up a system that superficially reflected the spheres of
jurisdiction which had existed before colonization. They instituted French courts which had
jurisdiction over French subjects, although Moroccan protégés reverted to the status of
indigènes; 5 they preserved batei din and sharī‘a courts, although the jurisdiction of these
institutions was limited to matters of personal status and inheritance; and they created a system
of indigenous courts which had jurisdiction over civil and criminal matters concerning Muslims
and Jews alike. 6 In 1918, the French promulgated a more detailed law concerning the
organization of the Jewish community and its legal institutions, instituting six rabbinic courts of
first instance and a high court of appeal in Rabat. 7
Through their judicial reforms, the French sought to instill order in what they perceived
as a chaotic system without fundamentally changing the logic of jurisdictions in Morocco as they
were understood. Jews continued to fall under the jurisdiction of batei din, Muslims under that
of sharī‘a courts, and all Moroccan subjects—Muslim and Jewish alike—under the jurisdiction
of Makhzan courts for criminal affairs. However, this schema of jurisdictional spheres was
based on a highly simplified and fundamentally inaccurate understanding of the nature of the
Moroccan legal system. The colonial regime’s decision to reduce the jurisdiction of sharī‘a
5
Caillé, Organisation judiciaire, 141-5. The process of abolishing protection granted by other states, however, was
far slower and some countries maintained consular courts in Morocco decades into the Protectorate: see
Mouillefarine, Condition juridique des juifs, 94-7; Caillé, Organisation judiciaire, 129-30; Chouraqui, Condition
juridique, 140-1; Kenbib, Juifs et musulmans, 416-20; Rivet, L'institution du Protectorat, 227.
6
This was through the dahir of 12 August 1913: Mouillefarine, Condition juridique des juifs, 80-1; Chouraqui,
Condition juridique, 121-2, 31-9; Cabanis, “La justice du chrâa et la justice makhzen,” 62-75; Schroeter and Chetrit,
“Emancipation and its Discontents,” 180. On Morocco’s legal system during the Protectorate in general, see Caillé,
Organisation judiciaire, 18-122.
7
The French employed Nahum Slouschz, a prominent scholar of North African Jewry, to study the organization of
Morocco’s Jewish community and submit a proposal for a new dahir, although the law that was ultimately passed
differed significantly from his suggestions: see Schroeter and Chetrit, “Emancipation and its Discontents,” 181-90.
On the law itself, see Mouillefarine, Condition juridique des juifs, 115-19, 126-38; Chouraqui, Condition juridique,
123-4, 128. The law also seems to have required courts to keep systematic archives of their proceedings, as this is
the earliest date from which registers of rabbinic courts survive: see, e.g., PD, register of the beit din of Fez, 1920-2
and 1934; CAHJP, MA/Mg1-36, registers of the beit din of Mogador, 1919-66.
372