High Court proceedings at a halt for over a month
The High Court has four judges, and three more at its Southern branch.
Signboard at the High Court entrance in capital city Malé
The Maldivian High Court has not held any proceedings for the cases they yet have ongoing for over a month.
The court’s website shows that the last of its proceedings was held on December 12th last year, with no revelation as to why proceedings have been at a halt.
RaajjeMV understands, that while the High Court had not announced recess last year as it does at the end of every year, the court’s judges have been on annual leave.
The High Court has four judges and three more at its Southern branch. However, the High Court has been faced with a shortage of adjudicators.
While this shortage was temporarily addressed by transferring judges from the Southern branch, a parliamentary amendment in June last year was passed that increased the number of judges at the court to 11.
Before the amendment, the High Court had a total of nine judges. Given that two of these positions are empty, the state needs to appoint four more judges to the court.
The High Court bench currently consists of Chief Judge Abdulla Didi, Judge Shujaau Usman, Judge Abdul Ghani Mohamed, Judge Abdulla Hameed, Judge Shuaib Hussein Zakariyya, Judge Ali Sameer and Judge Rauf Ibrahim.
Judge Shujaau, Judge Abdul Ghani, and Judge Shuaib preside over proceedings at the Southern branch.
