In Morocco, medical responsibility is still governed by disparate and obsolete texts. And, there is no clear mediation or specific law mechanism which protects the doctor in the face of the vagaries of his practice.
However, there has been a draft law that has been sleeping in the drawers of the Ministry of Justice since 2017.
And this draft law has been studied by doctors, lawyers, patients, parliamentarians, by the concerned services of the Ministry of Health as well as by the National Order of Physicians.
At the end of April 2025, the association of private gynecologists in Rabat has just revived the debate on this crucial question of medical practice in Morocco, that is medical responsibility.
In the meantime, let’s take a look at what’s going on elsewhere.
What about medical responsibility in the USA, Germany, France and Egypt?
The white blouse no longer protects against black toges.
Medical responsibility, formerly marked out by medical confidentiality and the authority of knowledge, is today subject to justice, the media, and a society which has become more and more demanding.
From the United States to Germany, from France to Egypt, via Morocco, the courts are now arenas where doctors must sometimes answer for acts committed within the framework of their daily exercise.
A silent, but deep mutation, which redraws the doctor-patient relationship and the very exercise of medicine.
United States: Medicine during the reign of lawyers
It is probably in the United States that medical responsibility is the most scrutinized, the most feared … and the most monnay.
Each medical gesture can potentially give rise to a trial.
Malpractice follows, as it is called, is an industry in its own right.
Each year, about
15,000 proceedings are brought against health professionals.
Specialized lawyers, aggressive insurance companies, and a culture of compensation transformed the medical error into potential jackpot for complainants.
Many doctors have seen their career broken for diagnostic errors or post-operative negligence.
The fear of the trial induces a “defensive medicine”: unnecessary examinations, excessive interventions, all this to avoid the court.
Germany: rigor, transparency … and rarity of heavy sentences
The doctor is not systematically nailed to the pillory.
Patients can file a complaint, but a mediation mechanism – often via professional orders – precedes legal proceedings.
The trials are rare, prison terms even more.
In 2020, there were about 2,000 seriously educated complaints, with only a tiny minority leading to criminal penalties.
France: between judicialization and quest for repair
However, more than 10,000 complaints are recorded each year for medical errors, and around 10 % end up a conviction.
Very few doctors receive prison terms, but professional sanctions (suspension, ban on exercising) are increasingly frequent.
Egypt: between expeditious convictions and lack of guarantees for doctors
In Egypt, the situation is dramatic for doctors.
The country is experiencing brutal judicialization, often populist, fueled by social networks.
Doctors are regularly sentenced to prison sentences, sometimes in fast deadlines, without real independent expertise.
In 2022, the condemnation of a surgeon for “negligence having resulted in death”, with a sentence of 10 years in prison, raised the indignation of the Egyptian and international medical community.
Fear of prison pushes many young doctors to flee the country or limit their practice.
The absence of a clear legal framework to differentiate the ordinary fault from the involuntary error increases the situation.
And in Morocco? An abyssal legal vacuum
If criminal convictions remain rare, the legal insecurity of doctors is real.
Medical responsibility is still governed by disparate and obsolete texts.
There is no clear mediation or specific law mechanism which protects the doctor in the face of the vagaries of his practice.
Affairs are brought directly before ordinary law courts, often without advice from independent experts.
The trial of the surgeon wrongly accused of having forgotten a compress in the abdomen of a patient, or that of the gynecologist prosecuted after a difficult childbirth, illustrate this legal vacuum.
The bill on medical liability, many times announced, is slow to see the light of day.
Meanwhile, practitioners exercise with the fear of complaint, amalgam, even popular vindictive. Medicine becomes a mined field.
A profession at risk … in silence
And yet, most doctors act with consciousness, in sometimes precarious conditions, with few means, and enormous pressure.
At a time when the patient becomes “customer” and when the requirement of results takes precedence over risk understanding, it is urgent to supervise medical responsibility with rigor, humanity, and lucidity.
To protect both the patient … and the one who treats him.
The situation in Morocco is a vital emergency
In Morocco, the pole is tense at the current office of the national order of doctors to make this great legal qualitative leap in favor of the medical profession.
