Anti-Defection ruling: Hearings for MPs Latheef and Ameeth's case set for Wednesday
Hearing for MP Latheef is scheduled for 10:15am, while the hearing for MP Ameeth's case is set for 1:15 pm on Wednesday
Supreme Court of the Maldives
Supreme Court has scheduled hearings for the cases submitted by Maduvvari constituency MP Ahmed Ameeth and Dhihdhoo constituency MP Abdul Latheef Mohamed, regarding their expulsion from parliament, for Wednesday.
Elections Commission had announced that both lawmakers, as well four additional MPs, were no longer Members of Parliament, following a ruling by the Supreme Court in July, stating that MPs who leave a party, joins another or is expelled, will lose their parliament seats.
Hearing for MP Latheef's case is scheduled for 10:15am, while the hearing for MP Ameeth's case is set for 1:15 pm on Wednesday. Ameeth is currently in police custody and will be presented to Court for his hearing.
A five-member bench of the Supreme Court, which will hear the cases of the parliamentarians, comprises of Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, Judge Ali Hameed, Judge Abdulla Areef, Judge Adam Mohamed Abdulla and Judge Dr. Ahmed Abdulla Didi.
In addition to MPs Latheef and Ameeth, Thulusdhoo constituency MP Mohamed Waheed Ibrahim, Villingilli constituency MP Saud Hussain, Dhan'gethi constituency MP Ilham Ahmed and Mahchangoalhi-South MP Abdulla Sinan are no longer members of the parliament as well, according to the Elections Commission.
Hearings for Waheed and Saud's cases are scheduled for Tuesday.
Waheed, Ameeth, Saud and Latheef had submitted the cases to the Supreme Court; while Latheef was elected as an independent, it is unclear why the Election Commission had declared that he had lost his seat.
According to the Commission, MPs Waheed, Saud, Ameeth and Latheef had been stripped of their parliamentary seats on July 19, while MPs Ilham and Sinan lost their seats on July 20.
The controversial ruling came after a number of ruling party MPs refused to retract their names from the no-confidence motion submitted against the parliament speaker. 45 MPs had signed the motion.
While a total of 11 MPs for the ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) had signed the motion, 10 of them had decided to leave the party; expect for Isdhoo constituency MP Ahmed Rasheed who had, at first, claimed that his signature had been forged.
