Elections Commissioner Ahmed Shareef has revealed that the Supreme Court had meddled with the commission’s work during this year’s parliamentary elections.

He said this after being summoned to the parliament’s committee on independent institutions on Tuesday night.

Noting that the Elections (General) Act states that all elections “shall be held, and all matters in relation to elections shall be conducted and supervised by the Elections Commission” including setting voting dates and timings, the elections commissioner said that the country’s top court had instead declared this

Highlighting this, Shareef said that the commission members and employees had to face additional work due to the court’s decision.

Further noting that they did not have the authority to challenge a Supreme Court decision, he said that they had no choice but to enforce the ruling.

In a verdict issued in February this year, in a case submitted by now Kaashidhoo constituency MP Abdulla Jabir, the Supreme Court had ordered the Elections Commission to give Jabir additional time to prepare for the parliamentary election after losing in Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s primary election; he had sought to be able to compete in elections despite losing a party primary.

In addition, the elections commissioner said that the court must accept that this decision had hindered the commission’s work.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Shareef revealed that the court has been asked to abolish some of the clauses in the Supreme Court guideline issues by the Supreme Court in 2013. He added that it is yet to respond to this.

The 16-point guideline came together with the verdict to annul the first round of presidential elections in 2013. While former President Mohamed Nasheed won 45.5 percent of the votes, he had fallen short of the required 50 percent to win the election. Four of seven justices at the approved the decision. The other three, including Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz Hussain, said there was no legal basis to annul the election.