Prominent lawyer Shameem suspended for a third time since 2015

Prominent lawyer and former deputy Prosecutor General Hussain Shameem, has been suspended for a period of three months by the Supreme Court’s full bench.

An announcement made by the Department of Judicial Administration (DJA) on Thursday reads that Shameem’s suspension comes over a tweet posted on Shameem’s official twitter account regarding judiciary. It reads that Shameem has been suspended from practicing law for a period of three months, after finding him guilty of going against the guidelines on law practitioners.

However, the announcement did not state exactly which of his tweets had led to the revoking of his license to practice law.

While Shameem was suspended on Thursday evening, he was summoned to the DJA earlier the same day for questioning.

The former deputy PG, who is also a part of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s legal team, remains the only lawyer to have been suspended for such a long period of time in recent history. As such, he was suspended twice from practicing law, since 2015.

His first suspension was in November 2015 and was revoked in January 2018. The second came less than a month later in February. Four months later in July, the judges’ bench in Supreme Court had ruled that Shameem’s lawyer rights had been restored. His first suspension came while he had been taking on former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb Abdul Ghafoor’s case.