Parliament committee to move forward with last year’s impeachment motion against speaker

The parliament’s general-purpose committee has decided to move forward with last year’s impeach motion against speaker Abdulla Maseeh.

No-confidence motions against speaker Maseeh were proposed at the parliament three times in 2017. 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.

While the opposition recently filed a fourth impeachment motion with 51 MPs, the general-purpose committee, chaired by Kelaa MP Ali Arif, has decided to move forward with the motion filed on 3 July 2017 with signatures from 45 MPs.

This comes after the Supreme Court ruled to re-seat the 12 MPs dismissed by the Elections Commission.

The committee has also decided not to give speaker Maseeh additional time to prepare his defence.