Urgent Interim Relief in Morocco (Référé)

Some problems cannot wait for a trial. Works next door are about to undermine a building, goods are about to be sold, a machine is blocked, a situation needs to be recorded before it changes. For these, Moroccan law offers a fast track: urgent interim relief, known by its French name, le référé.

The idea is narrow but powerful. An urgent-relief judge can order provisional and protective measures quickly, on the basis of urgency, without settling the underlying dispute. What the judge decides is temporary: it holds the position, prevents harm or preserves evidence while the real case — the merits — is dealt with separately, if a merits case is needed at all.

This guide explains the general framework under the current Code of Civil Procedure, Law 58.25. It is informational and national in scope, and it does not replace advice on a specific file. Because urgent measures turn on precise facts and short deadlines, the right course should always be checked for the particular situation.

The référé is a procedure for obtaining urgent, provisional judicial measures. It is not a shortcut to winning a case; it is a way of dealing with the pressure of time while the merits are decided in the ordinary way.

Two features define it. First, speed: the application is heard quickly, often within days, and the order can be enforced at once. Second, its provisional character: the urgent-relief judge takes a temporary measure and does not rule on who is ultimately right. That combination — fast and provisional — is exactly what makes it suitable for emergencies and unsuitable for resolving the substance of a dispute.

In practice, the référé is used to protect a right or a situation before it is too late: to stop something harmful, to preserve evidence, to order a provisional step, or to hold matters in place until a court can decide the merits.

Urgent interim relief is governed by the Code of Civil Procedure. Since 24 August 2026 that Code is Law 58.25, promulgated by dahir 1.26.07 of 11 February 2026 and published in the Official Bulletin. It replaced the procedural code that had governed for about half a century and brought civil, commercial and administrative procedure together in one text.

This matters for anyone researching the subject. A great deal of older material — articles, blog posts, even some court-facing guidance — describes urgent relief by reference to the previous code, whose article numbers and some of whose rules no longer apply. The current mechanics of the référé must be read from Law 58.25, not from the repealed text.

This guide deliberately states the mechanism in substance rather than pinning article numbers, and points the reader to the text in force. The applicable article numbers, time limits and the precise wording should be confirmed against Law 58.25 itself for any real case.

The single most important thing to understand about the référé is that it does not decide the case. The urgent-relief judge does not rule on who owns a property, whether a contract was breached, whether a company decision is valid, or whether a fault caused harm. Those are questions for the merits, before the trial court.

What the urgent-relief judge does is provisional: a measure that holds until the situation changes or until the merits are decided. Because it is provisional, it does not carry, on the merits, the authority of a final judgment; the trial court remains free to decide the substance, and the urgent measure can be revisited if circumstances change.

This is why the référé and the merits action are complementary, not alternatives. The urgent order buys time and protection; the merits action resolves the right. Treating a référé as if it settled the dispute is one of the most common and costly misunderstandings.

Access to urgent relief rests on two conditions that must both be present. The first is urgency: the situation must be one that genuinely cannot wait for the ordinary timetable. The second is that the measure sought must not prejudge what may be decided on the merits — the urgent-relief judge stays within provisional, protective territory and does not resolve the substance.

These two conditions work together. Urgency opens the door; the limit on touching the merits keeps the judge inside the room. A request that is not really urgent, or that in reality asks the judge to decide the dispute itself, does not belong in référé and will be sent back to the ordinary route.

Getting this framing right is the heart of a successful application. The measure must be presented as urgent and provisional — something that preserves a position rather than awards final victory.

Urgency is assessed on the facts, not asserted as a label. It generally means that a delay would cause harm that cannot easily be repaired, or that the situation will deteriorate if nothing is done before the ordinary process can run. A risk that is imminent and concrete counts; a general wish to move quickly does not.

Urgency is also judged at the time of the application and can fade. A party who waits too long after learning of the problem may undermine its own case for urgency, because the delay suggests the matter could, after all, wait. Acting promptly is therefore part of the substance, not just good practice.

Because urgency is fact-driven, two superficially similar situations can be decided differently. The task is to show, concretely, why this situation cannot wait — what will be lost, and how soon.

A frequent question is whether urgent relief is available when the parties genuinely disagree about the underlying right. The answer, under the current framework, is that the existence of a serious dispute on the merits does not by itself close the door: the urgent-relief judge may still take the protective measures needed to prevent an imminent harm or to put an end to a disturbance shown to be manifestly unlawful.

The two situations are distinct. Preventing imminent harm is forward-looking — stopping damage that is about to happen. Ending a manifestly unlawful disturbance addresses a present interference whose unlawfulness is clear enough that a provisional measure can be justified without deciding the whole dispute.

This is a Moroccan rule stated in the current Code, and it should be understood in its own terms rather than through the lens of similarly worded foreign procedures. The limit remains constant: even here, the measure is provisional and must not amount to deciding the merits. Where the matter genuinely requires a decision on the substance, the judge may direct the applicant to bring the merits action within a set time, failing which the provisional order can cease to have effect.

Urgent relief is, in principle, the domain of the president of the court, or of a judge the president delegates for that purpose; before a specialised section, its president exercises the same function. There is no separate standing tribunal for emergencies — the urgency jurisdiction is exercised by the head of the court sitting in that capacity.

This shapes how an application is made and where it goes. The competent president depends on the nature of the dispute — first-instance civil matters, commercial matters, or administrative matters each have their own court and therefore their own urgent-relief judge.

Identifying the right president early avoids a wasted application. As with jurisdiction generally, the point should be checked for the specific measure and the specific opponent rather than assumed.

For ordinary civil matters, urgent relief is sought from the president of the court of first instance. This is the general home of the référé: neighbour and property disputes, tenancy situations, contractual emergencies that are not commercial, family-adjacent urgencies and the like, to the extent they meet the urgency and provisional-measure conditions. In a property context this is one route considered for the eviction of an occupant without right or title, where the occupation is manifestly without title and no serious dispute requires a decision on the merits.

The president of the court of first instance also handles the orders upon request described below, and can appoint an expert or order a recording of facts where that is the urgent measure needed. The breadth of the civil référé is one reason it is the procedural tool most litigants encounter first.

Where the dispute is commercial, the urgent application is made to the president of the commercial court. The logic is the same — urgency and a provisional measure that does not prejudge the merits — but the forum follows the commercial nature of the matter.

Typical commercial urgencies include preserving goods or accounts, provisional measures between companies or partners, and urgent steps to protect a business position while a commercial claim proceeds. The choice between the first-instance and commercial president follows the subject-matter of the dispute, and should be verified for the particular case rather than assumed from the identity of the parties alone.

Administrative disputes have their own urgent-relief route before the administrative court, within the unified procedural framework of Law 58.25. This is where urgent questions involving the administration and public bodies are dealt with, again on the basis of urgency and a provisional measure. A recurring example is an ongoing unlawful administrative taking of property (voie de fait), where urgent relief may be sought to stop an interference in progress.

Whether, and on what conditions, an administrative decision can be urgently suspended is a specific question governed by the current administrative-procedure rules; it is a distinct topic that this general guide only situates rather than develops. Foreign concepts of administrative emergency relief should not be assumed to apply; the position must be taken from the Moroccan text in force for the particular decision and the particular court.

Alongside the référé sits a related but distinct mechanism: the order upon request, or ordonnance sur requête. Its defining feature is that it is obtained without first hearing the other side — the judge decides on the written application alone, on the basis of a summary of the facts and the reasons for the request.

This ex parte route is used for specific, limited measures where surprise or speed is essential — for example ordering a recording of a situation, an interrogation, or the service of a formal notice, and certain other urgent measures for which no special procedure is otherwise provided. It is not a general power to obtain anything without the other side being heard; it is confined to the measures the law allows to be granted in this way.

Because it is granted without the opponent present, the order upon request is hedged with safeguards. It is decided very quickly, its effect is carefully bounded, and the balance is restored afterwards — the affected party learns of the measure and can react. The référé, by contrast, is generally adversarial: the opponent is summoned and heard, save in cases of extreme urgency. Keeping the two mechanisms distinct — adversarial urgent relief on one side, ex parte order upon request on the other — is essential to choosing the right tool.

One of the most practical uses of the urgent route is to fix a situation before it changes — to have the state of a place, of works, of goods or of a document formally recorded so that it can be relied on later. A situation that is not recorded in time can become impossible to prove once it has moved on.

Such a recording can be obtained through an order upon request, and the judge can appoint the appropriate person to carry out the observation, including with technical assistance where the matter needs specialised knowledge. This is a preservation measure, not a decision: it captures the facts, it does not rule on them.

Preserving evidence early is often what makes a later case winnable. Where the urgent need is to document rather than to stop something, this recording route is usually the right first step, and it sits comfortably within the provisional, non-merits character of urgent relief.

Within the limits of urgency and not prejudging the merits, the range of provisional measures is broad and shaped by the situation. The judge may order steps to prevent imminent harm, to stop a manifestly unlawful disturbance, to preserve property or evidence, to record a situation, to appoint an expert for an urgent technical question, or to take other protective steps that hold the position.

What these measures have in common is that they are conservatory or provisional rather than final. They protect, preserve, freeze or record; they do not award the substance of the claim. A measure that would, in reality, give the applicant the final outcome of the dispute falls outside urgent relief.

The precise measure must be framed with care so that it is genuinely provisional, matched to the urgency, and within the judge's urgent-relief powers. An over-reaching request — one that asks the urgent judge to decide the case — is the surest way to have an otherwise good application refused.

In some situations the urgent route can be used to obtain a provisional advance on a sum of money — a provisional payment ordered where the obligation to pay is not the subject of a serious dispute. The logic remains provisional: the advance is not a final judgment on the debt, and the merits of the claim can still be decided.

Because this depends on the obligation being clear enough not to be seriously contested, it is confined to cases where payment is difficult to argue against. Where the debt itself is genuinely disputed, an advance is not the right tool, and the creditor's route lies through the ordinary claim or another dedicated procedure. Whether and to what extent a provisional advance is available should be assessed against the current rules for the specific claim.

Urgent relief and judicial expertise meet where a technical question needs to be examined before it is too late — the state of works, of a building, of goods or of accounts. An expert can be appointed on an urgent basis to observe and record, and this preventive, evidence-preserving expertise is closely related to the urgent route. The general rules on how an expert is appointed, how the operations are conducted and what the report is worth are covered in the guide to judicial expertise in Morocco.

The boundary is worth keeping clear. The urgent route can be the vehicle for appointing an expert quickly or recording a situation; the substance of how expertise works, and how a report is contested, belongs to the expertise topic. Using urgent relief to secure the expert, and the expertise rules to run it, is the usual division of labour.

Urgent relief is sometimes confused with conservatory attachment — the protective seizure that freezes an asset to secure a future claim. They overlap in spirit, because both are protective, but they are different mechanisms with their own conditions, and conservatory attachment is treated in its own guide to conservatory attachment in Morocco.

The practical point is not to reach for the référé when the real need is a protective seizure, or vice versa. A party who wants to freeze a debtor's asset pending a claim is generally in attachment territory; a party who needs an urgent provisional measure of another kind is in référé territory. Choosing the correct mechanism from the start avoids losing time on the wrong application.

Urgent relief must also be distinguished from enforcement. Executing a judgment — the enforceable title, the enforcement judge, garnishment and seizure, the judicial sale — is a separate process, and difficulties of execution and any stay are dealt with there, not in an ordinary référé. That process is explained in the guide to enforcing a court judgment in Morocco.

An urgent order is itself generally enforceable at once, which is part of what makes the référé useful. But the référé is a way of obtaining a provisional measure, not a way of running an execution or of re-opening a completed one. Where the question is really about how a judgment is being enforced, the enforcement route and the enforcement judge are the proper forum.

The order for payment (injonction de payer) is another fast, president-issued route, but it answers a different need: obtaining a title for a clear, documented money debt through a summary, largely documentary procedure. It is not an urgent provisional measure, and it has its own conditions, which are set out in the guide to the order for payment in Morocco.

The distinction matters when the problem is an unpaid sum. If the aim is a title for a clear debt, the order for payment is usually the tool; if the aim is a provisional advance where payment is not seriously contested, or another urgent protective measure, the référé may fit. Matching the right summary procedure to the right goal saves a step.

An urgent application is made to the competent president, setting out the facts, the urgency and the precise provisional measure sought. In an adversarial référé the opponent is summoned to a hearing fixed at short notice, so that both sides are heard before the order is made; the compressed timetable is what distinguishes it from an ordinary case.

The application should be focused and well documented from the outset. Because the hearing is short and the judge is deciding provisionally, the strength of the file — the evidence of urgency, the clarity of the measure, the documents that support it — carries much of the weight. There is little room to build a case gradually as there is in a full trial.

The exact form of the application, the notice period and the way the hearing is fixed follow the current procedural rules, which should be checked for the specific court and measure. What does not change is the need to present a genuinely urgent situation and a genuinely provisional request.

The ordinary référé is adversarial, but the law recognises that some situations are too urgent even for a short-notice hearing. In cases of extreme urgency, the judge can act without the opponent first being summoned, so that a protective measure is not defeated by the very delay it is meant to avoid.

This exceptional speed is balanced by its provisional nature and by the safeguards that follow: the measure is temporary, its scope is bounded, and the affected party is not deprived of the chance to be heard afterwards. Extreme urgency is a narrow gateway, reserved for situations where waiting even a little would cause the harm.

The order upon request occupies related ground, allowing certain specific measures to be granted on the written application alone. In both cases the principle is the same: speed now, with the balance restored once the immediate danger has passed.

An urgent application ends in an order — the ordonnance — which grants or refuses the measure. A defining feature of urgent relief is that the order is generally enforceable at once: it can be acted on immediately, which is essential when the whole point was to prevent imminent harm.

To be enforced, the order is served on the party concerned, and it is carried out according to the ordinary rules for putting a decision into effect. The immediacy of enforcement is what gives the référé its practical bite; a measure that could only take effect after long delays would defeat its own purpose.

The precise formalities of service and the mechanics of enforcing the order follow the current rules and should be confirmed for the specific case, especially where the order must be acted on against a party or an asset without delay.

An urgent order can be challenged. An unfavourable order is generally open to appeal, within a short period fixed by the current procedural rules, before the president of the court of appeal or the corresponding appellate authority for the court concerned. Because the deadline is short and depends on the type of order, it should be checked precisely for the specific case rather than assumed.

The provisional nature of urgent relief shapes what a challenge can achieve. An appeal tests whether the urgent measure was justified — whether the conditions of urgency and provisionality were met — not the merits of the underlying dispute, which remain for the trial court. An order refusing an ex parte order upon request also has its own route of challenge, again within a short period.

Because urgent relief is fast on the way in, it is fast on the way out: the periods to react are short. Anyone affected by an urgent order, for or against, should take the deadline seriously and confirm it immediately.

It is worth stating plainly what an urgent order does not do, because overstating its effect leads litigants astray. It does not decide the merits. It does not establish who owns a property, whether a contract was validly terminated, whether a company resolution is lawful, or whether a fault caused harm. It does not carry, on the merits, the authority of a final judgment.

An urgent order holds a position or prevents a harm while the real questions are decided elsewhere. Where the matter needs a decision on the substance, the applicant may be directed to bring the merits action within a set time, and a failure to do so can cause the provisional order to lose its effect. The urgent measure and the merits case are two different things, and the second is not made unnecessary by the first.

Understanding this keeps expectations realistic. A référé can be decisive in practice — stopping damage, preserving evidence, holding a line — but it is a provisional tool, not a final verdict.

Urgent situations often involve people or companies connected abroad: Moroccans living overseas (MRE) with property or interests in Morocco, foreign investors, and foreign companies whose assets or evidence are here. The urgency does not wait for anyone to travel, which raises practical questions of acting from a distance.

A party abroad can generally act through a representative with the appropriate authority, so that an urgent application can be made without the client being present. Where the opponent, the asset or the evidence is in Morocco, the Moroccan urgent-relief route is the one that bites, and it is usually run locally while foreign counsel coordinate from their side. A foreign urgent order does not automatically take effect in Morocco; its recognition and enforcement follow separate rules.

This section describes how such situations are generally handled and does not create nationality-specific rights. The practical message is that distance is not a bar to urgent relief in Morocco, provided the application is organised in time and through the right local channel.

A Moroccan lawyer's contribution to an urgent matter begins with judgement about the tool itself: whether the situation genuinely meets the conditions of urgency and a provisional measure, and whether the référé, an order upon request, a conservatory attachment or another route is the right one. Choosing correctly at the start is half the battle.

From there, a lawyer may frame the precise measure so that it is provisional and within the judge's powers, assemble the evidence of urgency, bring the application before the competent president at short notice, and, where the matter calls for it, launch the merits action within any time the judge sets. A lawyer may also act on the order once granted, and handle a challenge or an appeal within the short deadlines.

This describes what counsel may generally do in urgent matters; it is not an offer of representation. The value of a lawyer in a référé lies above all in speed and in framing — in turning a pressing problem into a focused, provisional request that a court can grant in time.

The most frequent mistake is treating the référé as if it decided the case. It does not; it is provisional, and a party who relaxes after an urgent order, thinking the dispute is won, may find the merits still wide open and, sometimes, a deadline to bring the substantive action already running.

A second mistake is delay. Because urgency is judged on the facts and at the time of the application, waiting weeks after the problem appears can defeat the very urgency the application depends on. A third is over-reaching — asking the urgent judge for a measure that in reality resolves the substance, which invites refusal.

Other recurring errors are choosing the wrong mechanism (a référé where a conservatory attachment or an order for payment was needed, or the reverse), relying on foreign procedures that do not apply in Morocco, and missing the short deadlines to challenge or to bring the merits action. Each of these is avoidable with an early, accurate assessment of the situation.

Law 58.25 on civil procedure (the current Code of Civil Procedure), promulgated by dahir 1.26.07 of 11 February 2026, published in the Official Bulletin, and in force since 24 August 2026, replacing the 1974 Code — the governing framework for urgent interim relief (le référé), orders upon request, the competent president, the conditions of urgency and provisionality, the measures available, service and enforcement of the order, and the challenge routes. The applicable article numbers, time limits and precise wording should be read from the text in force.

Ministry of Justice legal database (Adala) and the Official Bulletin (SGG) — for the consolidated text of Law 58.25 and its publication references.

The rules of administrative procedure within the unified framework of Law 58.25 — for urgent relief before the administrative courts and any urgent question concerning an administrative decision.

Higher-court case law — for how urgency, the provisional character of the measure, the limit on prejudging the merits, and the protective measures against imminent harm or a manifestly unlawful disturbance are applied in practice, cited as jurisprudence.