Bill to empower presidential commissions accepted amid protest

The bill to give more powers to two presidential commissions has been accepted amid protests from opposition MPs.

The bill was accepted at Tuesday’s sitting, as members of Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) stood in front of the speaker’s desk and yelled.

Speaker Qasim Ibrahim called for a vote while the opposition MPs shouted, and 42 members from the government coalition voted in favor while five MPs voted against.

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih established the Commission on Investigation of Murders and Enforced Disappearances and the Commission on Corruption and Asset Recovery to investigate cases of murder and disappearances from 1 January 2012 till 17 November 2018 that were improperly investigated as well as recovering stolen state funds and holding the former government officials accountable.

The bill to empower the commissions was submitted on behalf of the government by Alifush MP Mohamed Rasheed Hussain on Monday. It proposes to give various powers including the power to search and seize, freeze accounts, confiscate passports, summon and question, take statements, hold money and assets, and get information from foreign banks.

MP Rasheed has said the purpose of the bill is to better enable the commission to recover state assets and solve the murders and disappearances.

PPM MPs criticized the bill for proposing that the commissions’ cases submitted for prosecution would be evaluated by a special department under the Prosecutor General’s office, which would be required to make a decision on forwarding the cases for prosecution within 15 days. The lower court would then have to give its verdict within 60 days. Afterwards, 10 days will be given to appeal and the High Court would have to give its verdict within 30 days.

The bill also proposes that the two commissions would have to report to the President every three months. The commissions will be disbanded once the President concludes that they have completed their mandates.