Parliament has on Wednesday passed a motion to increase the number of justices from five to seven, including the Chief Justice.
74 lawmakers voted in favour of the motion, there were no abstentions or votes against; due to an issue with the system, one of the MPs stood up to cast his vote. Following this, it will be forwarded to the President’s Office for ratification.
The motion was proposed by MP for Central-Henveiru constituency Ali Azim, under the work being done to reform the country’s judiciary.
While the Supreme Court bench initially composed of seven justices under the 2008 constitution, it was reduced to five by former President Abdulla Yameen in 2014, in an attempt to control the courts.
The current Supreme Court bench are:
- Chief Justice Abdulla Didi
- Justice Abdulla Areef
- Justice Adam Mohamed Abdulla
- Justice Abdul Ghanee Mohamed, and
- Justice Abdulla Didi (suspended by JSC)
This amendment also allowed Yameen to appoint and dismiss justices.
During a debate held after the judiciary committee read out its report on the matter, North-Maafannu constituency MP Imthiyaz Fahmy revealed that the chief justice had penned a letter to Speaker Mohamed Nasheed, expressing concern over the decision to transfer the Department of Judicial Administration to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
Also during the debate, West-Henveiru constituency MP Hassan Latheef noted that increasing the number of justices will also add an MVR 7.9 million to the state budget.
Noting that this includes the allowances and privileges granted to the justices, Latheef said that they have asked the Finance Ministry to look into the matter to see if the amount can be reduced.
