Parliament’s Deputy Speaker ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik has on Wednesday, sent a letter to the Supreme Court, requesting a quick verdict in the case of the eight of the 12 initially MPs unseated by the Elections Commission.
The letter, addressed to Supreme Court’s Chief of Justice Dr. Ahmed Abdulla Didi confirms that the Parliament has received an impeachment motion against Speaker Abdulla Maseeh signed by 51 MPs, on Wednesday.
It also noted that article 86 of the Maldives constitution states that the presence of at least twenty five percent of the members shall constitute a quorum of the People’s Majlis. The 18th People’s Majlis consists of 85 members.
While the letter addressed to the court also notes that article 73(c) of the constitution states the conditions in which a person shall be disqualified from election, it reads that article 74 notes that any questions concerning the qualifications or removal or vacating of seats, of a member of the Parliament shall be determined by the Supreme Court.
As it is the responsibility of the Deputy Speaker as mandated under the constitution, to appoint a new speaker, Deputy Speaker Manik requested the court to reach a verdict in the case of unseated MPs as soon as possible in order to ensure all MPs can join the sittings to appoint a speaker.
Moreover, it notes that while the constitution does not give power to the Parliament to carry out anything that may impact the rights of the citizens, holding sittings with the absence of any sitting member will be against article four of the constitution which states that all the powers of the state of the Maldives are derived from and remains with the citizens.
While Deputy Speake Manik has declared that the Parliament will not carry out anything that infringes on the rights of the citizens, it has been over a year since the eight unseated MPs, along with the four that have since been re-instated by the Supreme Court, have been barred from entering Parliament.
This is the fourth no confidence motion to be proposed against Speaker Maseeh, with the first three having been proposed in 2017. As such, the first motion proposed in March of last year had signatures of 26 MPs but failed after the parliament, citing an error in the voting system, counted the votes by asking the lawmakers individually. The second motion was proposed with 31 signatures in the following April but was rejected after citing a recent amendment to the parliament regulation, which states that a no-confidence motion needs signatures from 42 MPs.
The third no-confidence motion in July was proposed with signatures of 45 MPs, which include lawmakers from the ruling party, but was rejected after the Elections Commission declared that some of the signatories have been removed from parliament for violating a floor-crossing ban.
