Morocco adopted a National Strategy on Immigration and Asylum in 2013 and outlined plans for a formal asylum law. More than a decade later, that law has still not been implemented.“In practice, UNHCR registers asylum seekers and conducts refugee status determination in application of its mandate stated in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its Statute,” Muriel Juramie, UNHCR’s interim representative in Morocco, told Al Jazeera.Al Jazeera contacted the Moroccan government for comment but did not get a response.Recognised refugees can then obtain documentation and apply for residence permits.Juramie said UNHCR has called for “the adoption of a comprehensive national asylum law in Morocco”, arguing it would bring “clarity, predictability, and consistency” to procedures, establish appeal mechanisms and formally codify the rights of recognised refugees.Without it, organisations working with refugees say protection rests on an improvised system rather than a coherent legal framework.“This is an unusual situation globally: a sovereign state effectively delegating a core protection function to an international agency, not by explicit legal design, but by default,” said Rachid Chakri of Fondation Orient-Occident.“Refugees arriving in Morocco today face a system that is not desig …
