New regulation to include appointing members to independent institutions

Speaker Mohamed Nasheed has said the new parliamentary regulation will likely include a new policy on appointing and dismissing members of independent institutions.

Interviewing, grading, appointing and dismissing members of independent institutions is currently the responsibility of the parliament’s independent institutions committee.

The parliament is currently split on the proposal to form a super committee to handle these tasks, with the involvement of all political parties.

Nasheed proposed the amendment to the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s Parliamentary Group (PG) on August 4, but PG members were split on the issue in their meeting the next day and made no decision. At the PG meeting on Monday, members voted to reject the amendment.

Nasheed said that he meets with the committee chairs each week and that the chairs have told him that it would be better for the whole of parliament to be involved in appointing and dismissing members to independent institutions instead of it being the responsibility of one committee.

He said that he is working to form a committee to handle the task, with the involvement of all committee chairs and political leaders and that further discussions will be made before proposing the amendment to the parliament.

Highlighting that the MDP PG rejected the amendment, Nasheed said that he no longer believes that it should be proposed to parliament and that he will work to make the necessary changes through new the parliamentary regulation.