The Cooperative Economy and the Challenges of Legislative Governance: A Study on the Balance between Ethical Foundations and Legal Regulations – A Comparative Reading of Morocco’s Law No. 112.12 with the French and Turkish Experiences

This paper examines the relationship between the cooperative economy and the challenges of legislative governance, combining ethical and legal analysis. It proceeds from the hypothesis that the effectiveness of the cooperative model depends on the balance between its founding values (solidarity, democracy, autonomy) and the regulatory and punitive mechanisms governing it, taking Morocco's Law No. 112.12 on cooperatives as a central case study. The study is organized in two parts: the first outlines the general context, concept and legislative trajectory of the cooperative economy in Morocco, from Law No. 24.83 to Law No. 112.12, alongside the latest sectoral statistics; the second offers a quantitative reading of the legal text's structure, tested against two international benchmarks — the ICA cooperative principles and ILO Recommendation No. 193 — to assess the balance between the ethical and regulatory dimensions of the law and its bearing on the distribution of power and responsibility among cooperative bodies, before testing these findings against the French and Turkish experiences. The paper finds that the explicit value-based layer of Law No. 112.12 does not exceed 4% of its articles, against more than 96% for regulatory and punitive provisions, and that this imbalance is reflected in the distribution of power between the general assembly and the board of directors — without this being a uniquely Moroccan shortcoming, since the comparison with France and Turkiye shows that the decisive factor is the depth of cumulative institutional reform rather than the mere age of the text. The paper concludes with recommendations ranked by ease of implementation, from immediate administrative measures to gradual legislative reforms.