Judicial Expertise in Morocco

When a Moroccan case turns on a technical or specialised factual question — what caused a building to crack, how much a business really lost, the extent of a bodily injury — the court can appoint an independent specialist to examine that question and report back. This is judicial expertise (expertise judiciaire).

A few points are worth grasping immediately. The expert assists the court; the expert does not replace it. The mission should concern technical or factual matters, not questions of law, which remain for the judge. The report is important evidence, but the court is not automatically bound by the expert's conclusions. And disagreeing with a report does not, by itself, give a party a right to a second expertise — a further expertise is granted at the court's discretion.

This guide explains the general procedure under the current law. It is informational and does not replace tailored advice on a specific file.

Judicial expertise is one of the investigative measures a court may use to clarify the facts of a case before deciding it. The court entrusts a suitably qualified expert with a defined mission — a set of technical questions — and the expert examines the relevant material and produces a written report.

It is a measure controlled by the court, not a private consultation organised by one party. That control is what distinguishes it from a report a party commissions on its own, and it is what gives the exercise its adversarial character: the other side is entitled to take part.

Expertise does not decide the case. It informs the court's assessment of a technical point. The legal consequences of the expert's technical findings — liability, the amount awarded, the outcome — are for the judge.

Civil procedure in Morocco changed in 2026. Law 58.25 on civil procedure was promulgated by dahir 1.26.07 of 11 February 2026, published in Official Bulletin no. 7485 of 23 February 2026, and entered into force on 24 August 2026. It replaces the procedural code that had governed for about half a century and brings civil, commercial and administrative procedure together in one text.

Judicial expertise is dealt with among the investigative measures of the Code. Under Law 58.25 the court verifies that the claim is admissible before ordering any investigative measure, including expertise (article 116). The provisions that follow govern how the expert is appointed, how the operations are conducted, the report and its deadline, and the ways a party may react to it.

A short transitional warning matters here. Procedural acts validly completed before 24 August 2026 keep their effects, and time-limits that were already running continue under the earlier rules. So a case or an expertise that straddles the reform date can require separate analysis under the transitional provisions; the modern framework described here applies to expertise ordered under the new law.

A court turns to expertise when deciding a disputed point requires knowledge the court does not itself possess — typically technical, scientific, accounting or medical knowledge. Common examples include the cause of structural damage, the nature and rate of a permanent disability, discrepancies in a company's accounts, the value of a property or a business, the conformity of works, or the calculation of a loss.

Expertise is not automatic. The court decides whether the question genuinely calls for a specialist and whether the measure is useful to resolving the dispute. A request that is really an attempt to have the expert decide the case, or to go on a general fishing expedition, is unlikely to succeed.

The measure can be ordered at the start of the investigation or later, once the issues have narrowed and it is clear which technical question actually needs answering.

The single most important thing to understand about an expertise is the boundary of the expert's mission. The expert answers technical questions requiring specialised knowledge. The expert does not decide questions of law, and does not decide who wins.

The difference is easiest to see through examples. A good technical question is: "What caused the cracking in the structure, and is it attributable to the design, the materials or the execution?" A question that oversteps is: "Which party is legally liable for the damage?" Likewise, "What discrepancies appear in these accounts, and how should the loss be quantified?" is a technical question; "Did the defendant breach the contract?" is a legal one for the court.

This boundary is not academic. A mission drafted in legal terms, or an expert who strays into legal conclusions, produces a report that is vulnerable — and a court that is not obliged to follow it.

Either a party may ask the court to order an expertise, or the court may order one on its own initiative where the law allows. A party's request should identify the precise technical question in dispute, explain why a specialist is needed, and propose a clear mission focused on that question.

Asking for an expertise does not mean the court must grant it. The court weighs whether the measure is useful and admissible before ordering it. A well-framed, narrowly targeted request — tied to the real point of technical disagreement — stands a better chance than a broad one.

The court's decision ordering the expertise fixes the expert and the mission and sets the framework the expert must follow.

Sometimes technical evidence risks disappearing before a case is even filed — a damaged structure is repaired, a defective installation is removed, a situation changes. Moroccan procedure addresses urgency through the summary-proceedings (référé) judge and provisional or preservation measures, and Law 58.25 reinforces provisional and conservatory measures generally.

In practice this means a party may, in an appropriate case, ask the competent judge for a measure to establish or preserve technical facts before or alongside the merits, under the conditions the Code lays down. It should not be assumed that every such request will be granted, or that Moroccan law mirrors a particular foreign mechanism; the route and its conditions are matters of Moroccan procedure.

The court appoints one or more experts with the specialisation the mission requires, ordinarily chosen from the official roster of court experts. In appropriate cases the court may exceptionally appoint an expert from outside the roster, who must take the required oath — an off-roster expert who has not done so cannot validly carry out the mission.

Where the question spans several fields, the court can appoint more than one expert. The point of the appointment is to match the mission to a specialist genuinely equipped to answer it.

The mission is the heart of the expertise. It is the list of technical questions the expert must answer and the framework within which the expert works. A precise mission produces a useful report; a vague or overbroad one produces a report that answers the wrong question or oversteps.

A well-drafted mission identifies the disputed technical facts, the documents and material to be examined, any inspection to be carried out, the calculations required, and the causation questions to be addressed — while keeping the expert away from legal determinations. It also marks the limits: what the expert is not asked to do.

Because the mission shapes everything that follows, the wording is worth real attention when an expertise is requested, and it is a natural point of debate between the parties before the court settles it.

An expertise is adversarial. The expert must call the parties — and their counsel and representatives — to the operations, giving advance notice before the scheduled date so that each side can attend and be heard. The notice period is longer where a party must travel from outside the court's jurisdiction, and the court can adjust it where urgency requires.

The purpose is that no party is confronted with a report built on operations it never had the chance to witness or comment on. Respecting the adversarial principle is not a formality; a report produced without properly calling the parties is exposed to challenge.

During the operations the parties may put relevant documents before the expert and make observations on the technical points. This is the moment to place the contracts, invoices, plans, medical records, photographs or correspondence that bear on the question into the expert's hands, and to draw attention to what the other side's material does or does not show.

Observations made during the expertise carry more weight than complaints raised for the first time after the report. A party that stays silent throughout and objects only at the end has a weaker position than one that engaged with the expert on the record as the work progressed.

What the expert actually does depends on the mission. It may involve a meeting of the parties, a site inspection, a review of documents, measurements, technical tests, or requests for further material, and the expert may hear explanations from those involved where that is appropriate.

Not every example applies to every expertise. A pure accounting expertise may be almost entirely documentary; a construction expertise usually involves visiting the site. What matters is that the operations stay within the mission and remain adversarial throughout.

The court sets the period within which the expert must file the written report; the decision appointing the expert is notified to the parties, and the deadline is fixed in that framework (article 124). There is no single universal duration — the period depends on the mission and the case, and it can be extended where justified.

When the report is filed, the court registry notifies the parties. If a point in the report is unclear, the court can recall the expert to provide clarification.

Two distinct situations arise. A party may seek to recuse the expert on grounds affecting the expert's impartiality — the grounds set out in the Code, which the 2026 reform widened to cover matters such as an indirect interest, a relationship of dependence, notorious friendship or enmity, or membership of a body with an interest in the dispute. A request to recuse must be made within the short time-limit fixed by the Code, which the reform raised to ten days from notification of the appointment order (article 126). Recusal is about the expert's neutrality; it is not a way to object simply because a party dislikes the expert's provisional view.

Separately, the court may replace an expert — for instance where the expert cannot carry out the mission, fails to do so within the period fixed, or declines it without acceptable justification (article 125). Replacement concerns the conduct or capacity of the expert, not the quality of a completed report.

Expertise costs money, and the Code addresses how those costs are handled. In practice an advance may be required to cover the expert's work, the amount is set within the procedure, and the Code fixes specific short windows for contesting certain fees and expenses rather than leaving them to the end of the case. The final allocation of the cost between the parties is dealt with by the court.

This guide does not quote figures. Amounts depend on the expert, the field and the scope of the mission, and any specific number would be both variable and case-dependent.

The report is the product of the expertise. It should address the mission it was given, set out the operations the expert carried out, identify the documents and material examined, explain the technical analysis, and state the expert's conclusions on the questions asked.

A report that answers the mission squarely, shows its method and is anchored in the material examined is persuasive. One that is thin on method, silent on documents the parties produced, or reaches beyond the mission into legal conclusions is far weaker — and gives the court and the parties something concrete to work with when the report is discussed.

No. The court is not automatically bound by the expert's conclusions. The expertise assists the court's assessment; the legal determination remains with the judge, who weighs the report together with the rest of the evidence and may depart from it or order a further expertise.

That does not mean a judge may brush aside solid technical evidence on a whim. In practice, where the trial judges adopt an expert's conclusions, Moroccan case law treats that adoption as an implicit rejection of the arguments raised against the report. The realistic reading is therefore twofold: a favourable report is influential but not decisive, and an unfavourable one is not the end of the road — but displacing it requires substance, not mere disagreement.

This is where expectations most often go wrong. A party does not "appeal" an expert report as if the report were itself a judgment. The report is evidence; it is contested before the court seized of the case.

Concretely, a dissatisfied party raises its objections before that court — challenging the method, pointing to factual errors or omissions, showing internal contradictions or unsupported assumptions, or arguing that the expert went beyond the mission. From there the party can ask the court to recall the expert for clarification, to order a supplementary expertise, or to order a new expertise. It is the judicial decision that ultimately relies on the report that can be challenged through the ordinary routes of appeal — not the report in isolation.

These are different things, and the distinction matters. A supplementary expertise asks the same expert to complete or clarify the work — to answer a mission point left open, resolve an ambiguity, or address a technical matter that was missed. A counter-expertise or second expertise involves the court entrusting the question to another expert.

In everyday language people speak of "counter-expertise" (contre-expertise) as though it were a right. It is not. A party may ask for a further expertise where it is justified — for example where the first report is seriously flawed or contested on substantial grounds — but whether to grant it is a decision for the competent court under the applicable rules. There is no automatic entitlement to a second expert simply because a party is unhappy with the first report.

A privately commissioned report — a technical, engineering, medical or accounting report a party obtains on its own — is not a judicial expertise. It was not ordered by the court and it was not produced in the adversarial framework described above.

That does not make it worthless. A private report can help a party document a technical issue, understand its own position, and support a request for a judicial expertise. But it does not bind the court and it does not carry the same standing as a court-ordered, adversarial expertise; the court freely appraises it as one element among the evidence.

Judicial expertise appears across very different disputes, always as a technical tool. In medical cases it can address causation, the nature and degree of an injury or permanent disability, the consequences of treatment and other technical medical questions; the legal question of professional fault is not settled by the expert's technical findings alone.

In construction and property disputes it addresses defects, cracks, conformity, workmanship, quantities, boundaries, valuation or the physical division of a property — the technical backbone of a case such as a construction dispute in Agadir, while liability and the outcome remain for the court. It is also frequently used to identify the exact premises in an eviction of an occupant without right or title, where a mismatch between the documents and the premises occupied can be decisive.

In commercial and accounting disputes it examines accounting records, invoices, stock, technical performance, machinery or the technical side of a loss calculation — as often arises in a shareholder dispute in Morocco — without turning the expert into an auditor who decides liability.

In personal-injury and traffic cases, medical expertise is central to assessing bodily harm once the victim's condition has stabilised, as explained in the guide to a road accident in Agadir. In each of these contexts the expertise supplies technical answers; it does not replace the dedicated analysis those disputes require.

Law 58.25 provides the current unified procedural framework, and expertise is used before the commercial courts and in administrative litigation as well as in ordinary civil cases — subject to any special rules that apply to a particular type of court or dispute. Jurisdictions are not identical in every respect, and the specific rules of the court seized should be checked.

On appeal, technical evidence does not simply vanish. An appellate court may rely on a first-instance expertise, and it may order a supplementary or a new expertise, within its procedural powers and at its discretion. There is no automatic right to a fresh expertise on appeal.

Before the expertise, it pays to define the technical dispute precisely, preserve the relevant records, organise the chronology, and gather the contracts, invoices, reports, photographs or medical records that bear on the question — and to identify what evidence is missing.

During the operations, attend where appropriate, provide the relevant documents, answer the expert's technical requests, make clear observations, and keep a written record of what was submitted and said. After the report is filed, review the method, compare the report against the mission, and look for omissions, factual errors, contradictions, unsupported assumptions, or conclusions that stray beyond the mission into legal territory.

This is practical litigation strategy, not a list of statutory obligations. But it is the difference between an expertise that a party shapes and one that simply happens to it.

A Moroccan lawyer's contribution to an expertise starts well before the report. A lawyer may assess whether an expertise is strategically useful at all, formulate the request, and propose a precise technical mission that captures the real point of disagreement while keeping the expert away from legal questions.

As the work proceeds, a lawyer may identify and organise the documents the expert should see, monitor the adversarial process to ensure the parties are properly called, prepare the observations submitted during the operations, and object where the mission is being overstepped. After the report, a lawyer may analyse its methodology, expose factual or logical weaknesses, and — where it is justified — request clarification, a supplementary expertise or a new expertise.

Above all, a lawyer connects the technical to the legal: translating the expert's findings into submissions the court can act on, and preventing a technically sound report from being lost through poor legal use. This is a description of what counsel may do in general; it is not an offer of representation.

Cross-border disputes — construction, insurance, M&A, product and supply matters — often combine a Moroccan procedure with advisers based abroad. In that setting, Moroccan counsel typically coordinates with foreign litigation counsel, an in-house legal team, and the technical specialists a case requires: engineers, doctors, accountants or insurers.

The coordination is practical. Foreign advisers understand the commercial background and the parallel proceedings; Moroccan counsel handles the expertise before the Moroccan court and the local procedural steps; and where evidence itself sits in Morocco, separate mechanisms apply, as explained in the guide to taking evidence in Morocco for foreign proceedings.

Foreign counsel does not replace Moroccan procedural advice before the Moroccan courts. This section describes how such cooperation is generally organised, and does not imply that AvocAffaire is retained as counsel in any matter.

Law 58.25 on civil procedure (the current Code of Civil Procedure), promulgated by dahir 1.26.07 of 11 February 2026, published in Official Bulletin no. 7485 of 23 February 2026, in force from 24 August 2026 — governing framework for investigative measures, including judicial expertise (article 116 on admissibility before an investigative measure; article 124 on notification and the report; article 125 on replacement of the expert; article 126 on recusal).

Ministry of Justice legal database (Adala) — consolidated text of the Code of Civil Procedure.

General Secretariat of the Government (SGG) — Official Bulletin, for the published text of Law 58.25.

Framework on court experts (roster, oath and status) — for the appointment and status of judicial experts, where relied upon.