The Civil Court is considering whether or not to summon High Court Chief Justice Abdul Ghani Mohamed and Majlis Speaker Abdull Shahid to give evidence in the ongoing professional negligence case against the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
The Civil Court may also summon Interim Civil Service Commission Chair, Dr Mohamed Latheef and former Attorney General Husnu Suood in relation to the same matter.
The request to have Chief Justice Ghani summoned to give evidence in court came from the JSC. It wants the court to accept Chief Justice Ghani’s oral testimony in place of the written evidence it was required, but failed, to submit to court today.
The remaining potential witnesses, Speaker of the Majlis Abdulla Shahid, Interim Civil Service Commission Chair, Dr Mohamed Latheef and former Attorney General Husnu Suood may be summoned at the behest of Treasure Island Limited, which is suing the JSC for professional negligence.
Civil Court Judge Mariyam Nihayath had given JSC until today to provide documentary evidence to show that it followed proper procedures in deciding not investigate three complaints made by Treasure Island against former Supreme Court Justice Mujthaz Fahmy and Judge Ali Naseer.
JSC Legal Representative Andul Faththah told the court today that he could not find the required documents. He asked the court to accept instead the oral testimony of Chief Justice Ghani, then Chair of the JSC.
The Constitution and JSC regulations both require that any decision regarding complaints of misconduct against the judiciary has the support of the majority of its ten members. The JSC is also required to keep a record of the members present and how they voted at the meeting.
Treasure Island has alleged that this procedure was not followed by the JSC in dealing with its complaints. Arbitrary and partial decision-making processes, it alleges, prevents the JSC from performing its constitutional duty to ensure “equal justice for all”.
A letter dated August 2009 and signed by Chief Justice Abdul Ghani, then JSC Chair, said in reply to one of Treasure Island’s complaints that the allegations were beyond the remit of the JSC and required no further investigation.
Judge Nihayath asked the JSC for the agenda and minutes of the meeting at which the decision was taken not to investigate the Treasure Island complaints any further.
JSC Legal Representative Abdul Faththah said today there was no such evidence to give to the court. This did not mean, however, he said, that no procedure was followed at all. “It was a different procedure then.”
The “different procedure” he explained, was one in which the JSC Chair pre-screened all the complaints from “an administrative perspective” to verify whether they were complaints that fit within the remit of the JSC.
“If the complaints were more to do with administration – such as a complaint against a long delay in cases being heard or listed”, Faththah said, “the matter would not be taken any further”.
The “administrative decision” taken by the Chair, he said, “saved time, and allowed members to concentrate on the important matters, and their constitutional duties.”
Chief Justice Ghani’s oral testimony will prove to the court the JSC did have a procedure in place, Faththah said. It would, he also said, negate the allegations that JSC made arbitrary decisions regarding complaints it received.
Judge Nihayath said she will decide at the next hearing on 21 December 2010 whether or not any or all of the potential witnesses would be required by the court.
The Civil Court has given the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) a week to locate ‘missing’ evidence it claims will exonerate it from accusations of bias and unconstitutional conduct.
JSC, the independent body constitutionally mandated to maintain ethical and disciplinary standards of the judiciary, is facing charges of professional negligence arising from its decision not to investigate complaints of serious misconduct made against two judges by Treasure Island Limited in 2009.
Treasure Island alleges that JSC decisions to dismiss his complaints against former Supreme Court Justice Mujthaz Fahmy and Judge Ali Naseer were taken arbitrarily and in breach of the Constitution. At the time Treasure Island made the complaints to the JSC, Justice Fahmy was the Commission’s deputy chair.
The JSC has denied any wrongdoing and, since the case began in early October last, has maintained that proper procedure was followed in responding to the complaints.
JSC regulations, and the Constitution, require that any decision or action it takes regarding a complaint against the judiciary must have the majority support of its ten members. The regulations also require that records be kept of the members present and how they voted when the decision was taken.
On Sunday Judge Mariyam Nihayath acceded to Treasure Island’s repeated requests for the court to demand that JSC provide documentary evidence to support its claims of having observed proper procedure.
JSC legal representative, Abdul Faththah, admitted in court yesterday that despite his many valiant efforts he had been unable to locate any such evidence – “yet”.
The court also noted that JSC had responded to one of the complaints by Treasure Island saying it was beyond the Commission’s duties to review the ruling of a judge. The letter sent, in August 2009, was signed by then Chair of JSC, High Court Chief Justice Ghani.
Faththah admitted in court yesterday that there was no evidence to prove the letter was based on a majority decision taken by Commission members as is required.
He told Judge Nihayath, however, that he had consulted with Ghani on the matter, and had been advised that circumstances do exist in which the JSC Chair has the legitimate authority to deal with a complaint without a majority vote by members.
Proof of when and how the JSC chair can exercise the said discretionary power, however, have not been located “yet”, Faththah said.
Judge Nihayath told Faththah the court could not wait indefinitely for the proof to turn up, and ruled that JSC provide the court with the documents when the case resumes on 14 December 2010.
She will also decide then, she said, whether to agree to Treasure Island’s request to summon as witnesses some current and former members of the JSC to verify their involvement – or lack thereof – in a majority decision not to investigate the company’ complaints.
The JSC has been increasingly riven with conflict. Some members have accused current Chair Supreme Court Justice Adam Mohamed Abdulla – in association with several others – to have deliberately and systematically avoided adopting a Standard Operating Procedure according to which it should be run.
Tensions escalated further last week when one of its members, Aishath Velezinee, accused Justice Abdulla of being mentally unfit to hold office. She has also accused certain members of the JSC of abusing their powers and using the JSC to sabotage all efforts to consolidate the new Maldivian democracy.
The JSC was required to have adopted a Standard Operating Procedure by 26 January last, but has so far failed to do so. By October this year there were over a 100 complaints against the judiciary the JSC had not attended to.
It also failed to meet the deadline for appointing an interview panel to approve judges to the High Court bench, almost two months after the deadline for applications elapsed.
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) is reviewing its earlier decision not to investigate allegations of misconduct against three judges made by Treasure Island Private Limited.
The Treasure Island case against the JSC, which began in early October this year, implicates three judges in miscarriages of justice against the company.
Treasure Island alleges that the JSC neglected its Constitutional responsibilities in failing to investigate the company’s subsequent complaints against the judges.
Now Supreme Court Justice Ali Hameed, Interim Supreme Court Justice Mujthaz Fahmy, High Court Justice Ahmed Shareef Ali and Senior Magistrate Ali Naseer, alleges Treasure Island Chief Ali Hussein Manik, abused the justice system to wrongfully take, and pass the ownership on to someone else, a resort island belonging to him.
He names influential figures in the tourism sector during the previous government as having been involved in the case.
The three judges he named, Manik alleged, abused the law to rule against Treasure Island in its civil case against the parties he alleges wrongfully took the island from him.
Responding to the allegations of professional negligence, the JSC initially told the court in October that two of the complaints were not within its Constitutional mandate for ensuring the ethical standards and principles of the judiciary.
The third complaint, it said, was pending a decision at the time the case was filed.
Faththah said today, however, that the JSC had decided to use existing legal mechanisms to review its earlier decisions not to investigate the complaints and to re-assess whether or not the complaints should be investigated.
“What the company asked the court for is a legal mechanism under which to review the JSC decision not to investigate its complaints. We have now provided that mechanism by beginning the process to review our earlier decision”, Faththah said.
Deciding to re-open complaints against members of the judiciary represents a shift in the JSC’s earlier stance which suggested that allegations of misconduct by some members of the judiciary could be outside of its Constitutional mandate.
The JSC said today that it does not need a court ruling to make it perform its Constitutional duties, and stated that it will examine every complaint of misconduct made against every member of the judiciary without a court having to make such an order.
“Since the Commission is reviewing every complaint received by the appellant, the Commission does not feel that a court ruling is necessary any more,” Faththah said.
What Treasure Island wants from the JSC, it was already providing, he said. A court ruling was both obsolete and irrelevant, he said asking for dismissal.
Treasure Island Limited, however, insisted on court intervention.
It’s chief Manik, who had earlier told the court he did not have any trust in the JSC, said he wanted the court to make an order allowing him to see the agenda of the meeting in which JSC members decided not to investigate allegations against the three judges.
Treasure Island had asked the court for the same ruling on 17 October 2010, when the court last sat on the issue.
What the JSC told the court today is that since Treasure Island is asking specifically for the court to order JSC to provide the documents as evidence, in the absence of such an order by the court, the JSC was not obliged to provide the documents.
The Constitution requires any decision taken by the JSC to be one reached by a majority vote at a meeting in which more than six of its ten members are present.
If Judge Nihayath orders that Treasure Island should be allowed to see minutes of the meeting, it would be able to verify whether or not the JSC followed proper procedure in making the decision, twice, not to further investigate the complaints made by Treasure Island.
The JSC is yet to adopt a Standards of Procedure according to which all its duties would be performed, leading to dissent and tension among its members, and between members and the Secretariat.
In the last few weeks, a rift has appeared in the JSC between members who want the JSC to adopt its Standards of Procedure as a matter of urgency and allege that the Chair of the Commission is systematically evading the issue.
Two weeks ago JSC Chair Supreme Court Justice Adam Mohamed walked out of a meeting when four members demanded that he table adopting the Standards of Procedure at the Commission’s next meeting.
The four member group pushing for adoption of the Standards include the Attorney General, the President’s Member, Member of the Public, member of the law community and member of the High Court.
A day-long meeting to adopt the Standards of Procedure scheduled to be held outside of Male’ on Saturday, the next time when the matter was put on the agenda, was cancelled as various members excused themselves citing other commitments.
Three meetings of the JSC have since been held but none included discussion of the Standards.
Although it is a group of the same members who happen to be unavailable for any discussions on the Standards of Procedure, none of the members have publicly declared whether or why there is a reluctance on their part to adopting the Standards.
The Secretariat of the JSC, meanwhile, is also in a state of chaos after Chair Justice Mohamed reportedly intimidated the Interim Secretary General Moomina Umar and other members of staff over their decision to speak to the media without prior approval from the Chair.
The claim by Justice Mohamed is inaccurate as the JSC unanimously adopted a declaration on 2 September, authorising three members of the Secretariat, including Moomina to speak to the media.
Taking over from his lawyer to represent himself, Manik appealed to Judge Nihayath for the court’s intervention as he did not trust the JSC to do its duties.
“Without an honest JSC, we, the people of this country cannot have our right to justice,” Manik said.
Judge Nihayath adjourned the case to 5 December 2010.
The need to spend quality time with family, party political duties, and other outside commitments has prevented the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) from meeting to adopt its Standards of Procedure, now overdue by 10 months.
According to the JSC Act, the Standards of Procedure should have been adopted by January 26 this year.
The Standards of Procedure, or House Rules, are required to set the rules and regulations according to which the JSC should carry out its Constitutional responsibilities.
The JSC is an independent body constitutionally mandated to oversee the ethical standards and principles of the country’s judiciary.
Without the Standards of Procedure, the Commission is run on ad-hoc basis, often according to the discretion of the chairperson.
The day-long meeting in which members were to work on adoption of the Standards of Procedure was scheduled for Saturday.
It was also decided that the meeting would be held outside of Male’ from 9:00 in the morning till 8:00 pm.
JSC Chairperson, Supreme Court Justice Adam Mohamed, excused himself from the meeting citing court work and family commitments on Saturday.
Dr Afrasheem Ali, Deputy Chair and Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), could not attend the meeting as his Saturdays, he told the JSC, are reserved for party political work.
Majlis Speaker Speaker Abdulla Shahid and Civil Service Commission President Fahmy would not be in the country on Saturday.
For Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Didi, the reason for being unable to attend was the location of the meeting. He was unwilling to travel outside of Male’.
The venue of the meeting had not been finalised when the meeting was cancelled. JSC Interim Secretary General Moomina Umar told Minivan News that it would have been a place where members had access to full conference facilities, allowing them to focus on the urgent issue at hand fully.
Moomina also said that subsequent attempts by her to move the meeting to Male’ to facilitate objections had not received a positive response, forcing the meeting to be cancelled.
The ten member JSC needs six members present before a meeting can be held.
On 21 October, JSC Chairperson Justice Mohamed walked out of a meeting in which some members pushed to have adoption of the Standards of Procedure put on the agenda as a matter of urgency.
Judge Abdulla Didi, who excused himself from Saturday’s meeting because it was to be held outside of Male’, also walked out of the meeting with Justice Mohamed, making it impossible for members to put the Standards of Procedure on the agenda of its next meeting.
Justice Mohamed, speaking to media, blamed his decision to desert the meeting on the ‘vulgar behaviour’ of the President’s Member at the JSC, Aishath Velezinee.
Velezinee, along with Attorney Ali Sawad, JSC Lawyer Ahmed Rasheed and JSC Member of the General Public had objected to the continued and systematic manner in which the JSC Chair avoided making adoption of the SoP a matter of top priority.
The JSC released news of Justice Mohamed’s desertion of the meeting immediately, an act which he has claimed is against JSC Regulations as communications with the media cannot be done without prior majority consent of members.
The claim, however, is inaccurate.
A unanimous JSC decision dated 2 September this year (JSC-B1/10/200), authorised Media Officer Hassan Zaheen, Deputy Legal Officer Abdul Fatthah Abdul Ghafoor and Moomina Umar to speak to the media on its behalf.
Historical state documents dating back to the 16th Century, discovered in storage boxes at the President’s Office, have been catalogued and handed over to the Department of Heritage.
The documents were discovered in 2008 when the newly elected President Mohamed Nasheed was moving into the President’s Office vacated by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
They were stashed away in boxes and discovered on three different occasions at the premises of the President’s Office.
President Nasheed handed over the documents, digitally catalogued, to the Department of Heritage at a ceremony at the National Museum this morning.
The oldest document in the collection, which contains a total of 1005 documents, dates back to 1560.
The collection contains, among other state correspondence, letters of diplomacy between various Maldivian rulers and foreign states including Britain, the United States and Germany.
Other documents provide painstakingly kept records of how historical rulers divided up, endowed or gifted land, vegetation and even parts of the sea to members of the public according to their largesse and customs.
The documents also provide an opportunity to trace how land in Male’ came to be in the possession of particular families, and makes possible previously denied insights into what Male’ was like hundreds of years ago.
Some of the documents were written on ‘scrolls’ made from the skin of goat, while some others were scribed on cloth. Most of the documents, however, were written on paper that are now in different conditions of repair.
The document catalogue, prepared under the supervision of Aminath Shareef, Senior Projects Director of the President’s Office, contains over a thousand pages of digitised images of each document with accompanying explanations as to their origin and use.
The collection will be managed by the Department of Heritage, established recently to operate under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. The new Department will also manage the National Museum, the Boduthakurufaanu Memorial Centre in Utheemu, and the National Archives.
Director of the National Museum, Ali Waheed, told Minivan News that the documents will be on display for the general public early next year.
In addition to being exhibited, the documents will also be made available in electronic format for historians and other researchers.
Close to two hundred arrests have been made by police this year alone on allegations of child abuse.
The latest such arrest was on Wednesday, when a father was charged with sexually abusing his own daughter.
A total of 198 arrests were made for child abuse cases from the beginning of the year to the end of September 2010.
Though the charges are all of crimes against children, the type of abuse varied greatly. Children had been kidnapped, falsely imprisoned, sexually abused, abandoned and assaulted. One had been killed.
The most common among all types of crimes against children is that of sexual abuse. 131 of the 198 arrests made by police this year for crimes against children were for sexual offences.
A Gender Ministry report on women’s health and well-being, an academically rigorous and groundbreaking countrywide survey of Maldivian women produced in 2007, revealed that over 12 percent of Maldivian women between the age of 15 and 49 are sexually abused as a child.
Almost ten percent of women’s first sexual experience is either forced or coerced, the report shows. The younger the woman is, according to the report, the more likely that her first sexual experience is forced on her or that she is coerced into it.
The crime of child abuse is most common in Male’. More than 16 percent of girls in Male’ under the age of fifteen are sexually abused, four percent higher than the national average.
The national average stands at 12 percent – of every 100 Maldivian girls under the age of fifteen, twelve are sexually abused.
For almost two-thirds of these girls, 60 percent, the experience is not a one off, but repetitive and prolonged. Most perpetrators of the crime, according to the report, are male family members of the children.
The second most common perpetrators are male acquaintances of the family, neighbours, teachers or religious leaders.
In August this year, renowned Qary Hussein Thaufeeq, a leader of Friday prayers and a teacher of Qur’an to children on national television, was arrested on multiple charges of child sex abuse. He has since been transferred to house arrest.
24 percent of girls under the age of 15 who were sexually abused were victims of strangers while for eight percent of the girls, the perpetrators were their fathers or stepfathers.
The Gender Ministry report also shows that a quarter of Maldivian women become sexually active between the ages of 15 and 17, before the legal adult age.
Six percent of female Maldivians are under the age of 15 when they have their first sexual experience. For many of them, the experience is forced or coerced.
From comparisons with similar research done by the WHO on 11 other countries, the Gender Ministry report also reveals that only two other countries – Namibia and Peru – have areas with higher rates of child sexual abuse than Male’.
The density of the island’s population, which forces girls into sharing sleeping space with a large number of people, especially older males, is one of the main factors the report identifies as contributing to the frequency of the crime in Male’, the report says.
Girls who are forced to travel to Male’ to study and have to board with relatives, friends and strangers are also identified in the report as being particularly vulnerable.
The fact that the most common type of child sex offender is a male family member may contribute to its high rates in Male’, the report says.
“Perhaps in Male’, where extended families live together, often in crowded conditions, young women and girls are more at risk from their male family members that they live with”, it says.
International research into the impact of child sexual abuse has shown that victims of child sex abuse are likely to become afflicted by a large number of behavioural and psychological problems including negative impact on reproductive health, relationship problems, sexual dysfunction, depression, thoughts of suicide, deliberate self-harm as well as substance abuse and sexual risk taking.
The penalty for child sex abuse, according to the Child Sex Abuse (Special Provisions) Act, is 10-14 years but can be extended to 15-18 years if the accused was in a position of trust with the children he allegedly abused. The new Act is not retroactive, and its sentencing does not apply to child abuse crimes committed before it was implemented.
The Criminal Court has told the Prosecutor General not to send any new cases to the court until further notice as it is busy implementing administrative changes required by the Judicature Act.
The Civil Court, which had suspended “all matters of justice” for seven days from Sunday to make administrative changes necessitated by the Judicature Act, will be returning to normal tomorrow, Chief Judge Ali Sameer told Minivan News.
“Four days” in which justice was suspended so the court can focus on administrative jobs, Chief Judge Sameer said, was “not bad”.
Chief Judge Sameer denied that President Nasheed’s ratification of the Act on Thursday 21 October had taken the court by surprise. Rather, he said, the Court was unsure as to whether President Nasheed would ratify the Act or not.
“Had he not ratified the Act as passed by the Majlis, pre-emptive action on our part would have meant that we would have made changes that were unnecessary, and also incurred a huge amount of expenses unnecessarily”, he said.
The Judicature Act was enacted to bring the nation’s judiciary in line with the standards set by the 2008 Constitution to establish an independent judiciary replacing the administrative system of justice that was in place prior to the passing of the Constitution.
It creates the country’s courts, establishes their system of hierarchy and forms regulations according to which they should function.
The Act, which the President ratified within the specified 15-day period, changed the name of the Madhanee Court to Civil Court and the name of the Jinaaee Court to Criminal Court. ‘Madhanee’ means ‘civil’ in Arabic and ‘jinaaee’ means ‘criminal’.
Changes in the Act also affect the operation of courts in various islands. Attempts by Minivan News to contact the Chief Judicial Administrator Ibrahim Adam Manik to clarify the full range of administrative changes that has necessitated the interruptions to justice proved unsuccessful.
When Minivan News was able to get Manik on the phone after a two hour period in which his secretary repeatedly said he was “on his break” he requested that the question be sent to him by email.
Manik ignored the email when it was sent as requested.
The Criminal Court announcement states the difficulties have arisen because “relevant authorities of the judiciary have not taken the required decisions” on the procedures to be followed in the cases that are now brought to the court.
Nor have the said authorities taken a decision on how island courts should be addressed when the Criminal Court is sending out summons or messages to people involved in the cases being brought to the court.
The Court does not specify a date when it will resume accepting cases from the Prosecutor General. It says, however, “even though the Court is encountering administrative difficulties in implementing the many changes required by the new Act”, it will resume normal business “as soon as the work is completed”
Mohamed Nasheed, Independent MP for Kulhudhuffushi, who was a member of the Parliamentary Committee in charge of the Bill said the courts should have been in a position to meet the changes required by the Judicature Act head on.
The Bill had been in the Parliament since the beginning of the year, and the Parliamentary Committee had worked closely with the Courts during the re-drafting stages, asking for their opinion, comments and feedback all along the way, Nasheed said.
“The Judicature Act does not bring about a change so fundamental or so radical that the process of dispensing justice has to be interrupted. There should have been a smooth transition in which the courts seamlessly integrated the changes as the Act was ratified,” Nasheed said.
“You are swine” and “the children that you bear from this marriage will all be bastard swine,” a tourist couple renewing their marriage vows in the Maldives were told in a ‘traditional Maldivian’ ceremony conducted in Dhivehi at Vilu Reef Beach and Spa Resort.
“Your marriage is not a valid one. You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel. The other, too, is an infidel – and we have reason to believe –an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion,” the ‘celebrant’ tells the couple, who appear completely unaware of the humiliation they are being subjected to.
A 15-minute video of the ceremony was uploaded on YouTube on October 24 2010 by a member of staff. Vilu Reef Manager Mohamed Rasheed told Minivan News that the staff member who uploaded the video did it as “a joke”, without “realising the seriousness of the potential consequences”.
Vilu Reef Beach and Spa Resort advertises itself as a place where couples can renew their wedding vows “hand in hand against a golden sunset backdrop” and where their “everlasting love” can be sealed by a “kaleidoscope of romantic hues” that covers the sky during the sunset.
In the video the ‘celebrant’ briefs the couple in English, prior to the ceremony, that it will be conducted according to “not only Maldivian” but also “Arabic and Islamic” norms.
Two wedding rings inside an open coconut, which appears to be lined with mother of pearl, are in front of the couple along with two fresh coconuts. The couple seem dressed for the ceremony, the woman in white as favoured by Western brides.
“Don’t look at her chest”, a man – possibly the videographer – is heard saying as the woman leans over to take a sip from the coconut. She adjusts her neckline.
Men, about ten or more, surround the area both outside and inside the palm fronds, which appears to be a make-shift wedding venue.
The celebrant twirls his thumbs over a piece of paper that he appears to be studying with deep concentration. A male voice asks him if the document is “something new”. He replies that it is “the seventh Article of the Penal Code”.
The document, of which there is a brief close-up in the video, has absolutely no relation to marriage laws in the Maldives. Words that are legible on the document refer to “staff employment”, suggesting that it is a document relating to employment regulations.
Asking the couple and other ‘officials’ to raise their hands as is customary for Muslim prayers, the ‘celebrant’ begins his marriage vows.
“Fornication has been legalised according to Article six, 1.11 of the Penal Code”, he chants in a tone favoured by religious scholars. “That is, frequent fornication by homosexuals. Most fornication is by males,” he continues.
“Research has shown that men have a higher sex drive than women,” he says. “According to Article 8 to 6 of the Penal Code, converting to Islam, or circumcision, is not desirable under any circumstances.
“Germs of anger and hatred will breed and drip from the tips of your penises,” he says.
The ‘celebrant’ then switches from his improvised “Islamic and Maldivian marriage laws” to reading aloud from the document in front of him in the same ‘religious’ tone. This time, what he chants to the couple is to do with terms of employment.
When he returns to the ‘marriage vows’, he refers to certain Articles of the Constitution and combines ‘Section e” and “Section f” to create the word “balhu”, which in Dhivehi means “swine”. ‘E’ in Dhivehi is the letter ‘baa’ and ‘F’ the letter ‘lhaviyani’.
The ‘celebrant’ mixes the two letters to make the word ‘balhu’, the full version of which, as used by the ‘celebrant’, is ‘nagoo balhu’. The literal translation of the term is ‘crooked tail’, believed to refer to a pig’s tail, and is considered to be one of the worst insults in the Dhivehi language.
“You are swine according to the Constitution,” he declares, solemnly.
He then asks the couple to stand up and hold hands. The ‘officials’, too, stand up and place their hands on the couples’. They form a séance-like circle and the ‘celebrant’ begins chanting.
“Aleelaan, baleelaan…”, he begins. What he is chanting is not a verse from the Qur’an, or marriage vows in Dhivehi, but are the words of a popular Dhivehi children’s game.
Words of the game, too, are changed to say “black swine” instead of what is contained in the original.
“Before buggering a chicken, check if the hole is clean. That is because the people of the countries that you are from are familiar with the taste of the ****holes of chicken,” he chants, still with hands held over the couples’.
“Do not treat with kindness people against whom violence is being committed. Commit more violence against victims of violence. You are not people who have been sent to this world to commit violence.”
He then returns to the matter of staff salaries, which he continues to chant in the same tone as he had done the insults. “Do not complain too much about salaries, or matters regarding salaries. That is against the Penal Code. This is not something I am saying for your benefit – it is a law that we have made.”
He begins to chant loudly about “black swine”, stringing insult after insult and delivering it in the same rather ominous tone that Maldivian religious figures choose to deliver their sermons in.
“You fornicate and make a lot of children. You drink and you eat pork. Most of the children that you have are marked with spots and blemishes… these children that you have are bastards,” he continues solemnly.
Someone else is heard at this point to tell the ‘celebrant’ to “say a little bit more, and then quit.”
The concluding chant is delivered in a gentler, softer voice: “Keep fornicating frequently, and keep spreading hatred among people. The children you will have from this marriage will all be bastard swine.”
While the couple are putting rings on each other’s fingers, someone is heard saying that the recording should stop. “Don’t you worry about it,” says someone else, and the recording continues.
“Aren’t they going to suck mouth?” someone is heard asking. “Make them suck mouth”, it is urged. ‘Sucking mouth’ is a term used by Maldivians to denigrate the act of kissing.
“So now, in Maldivian law, in Islam, you are already married”, says the ‘celebrant’, returning to English. The hapless couple are then told to relax and enjoy the celebrations that are to follow, by the end of which a certificate of their nuptials will be ready for them.
Image from Vilu's website, advertising the ceremony
Once the ceremony is concluded, the celebrant, who is dressed in a shirt and tie – with the shirt left to hang loose over a traditional Maldivian sarong – swaggers out of the makeshift wedding venue – tugging at his tie and proclaiming himself “President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed.”
The celebrant, Vilu Reef Manager Rasheed told Minivan News, is an assistant Food and Beverage Manager named Hussein Didi. As he leaves the wedding venue having concluded his job, someone announces his presence, as “Ghaazee Hussein Didi”.
A Ghaazee is the Arabic name for a judge or magistrate, also adopted to mean the same in Dhivehi.
People clap loudly as the couple, whose marriage vows have just been mocked in some of the filthiest language known to Dhivehi, are videoed making their way to the next part of their ceremony – the planting of a coconut tree to mark the occasion.
Various types of insults about the woman and the man, their clothing and demeanour, are being spoken throughout in the form of a running commentary in a sports video.
As the bride bends down to plant the coconut tree, a man is heard is exclaiming, “Can see her breasts!” The ‘commentator’ observes, “She is wearing something”, he knows, he says, “because my beard has gone grey watching those things… I have seen so many of them now that I don’t even want to look any more when I see them.”
The groom, who is watering the new coconut tree which they have just planted, is totally unaware of the manner in which his wife and her breasts are being discussed by the group of Maldivian men ‘officiating’ at the renewal of their wedding vows.
‘Celebrant’ Didi tells the couple they should return soon to check on the progress of their plant, testament to what had taken place on the island that day.
The video concludes with the ‘commentator’ repeatedly urging the ‘celebrant’ to make the couple ‘suck mouths, suck mouths’.
The resort’s Manager Rasheed was unable to tell Minivan News how much the occasion had cost the couple or where they were from.
Asked if the couple had been made aware of the nature of the ‘wedding vows’ they had taken, Rasheed said they had been sent pictures but not the video.
“Our package includes sending them pictures on the CD the very same night”, he said. Rasheed added that the resort does not have a written ‘khuthuba’ or sermon from which to read, nor is the role of the celebrant undertaken by a designated person.
“It is done on a rotating basis. We have been doing it for ten years now, and from a very small start, it has grown into a very successful part of what we offer at Vilu,” he said.
Rasheed said he had become aware of the nature of the ceremony conducted by Didi shortly after it happened. He had banned Didi from performing any more ceremonies, but did not feel it was necessary to take any further action, until the video appeared on YouTube.
The staff member who uploaded the video, Ali Shareef, a shop assistant, is not being disciplined or investigated further, Rasheed said. He complied with the request by the management to remove the video from YouTube.
The ‘celebrant’, Didi, however is currently under investigation by the Head Office in Male’, Sun Travel and Tours.
Minivan News has learned that the ‘wedding package’ offered by Vilu Reef Resort lasts an hour, costs US$1300 which includes the services of a ‘celebrant’, a sailing trip and Maldivian music and dancing.
The happy couple can obtain photographs of their beautiful ceremony in the Maldivian sunset on Vilu Reef Resort for an additional US$440.
CEO of Sun Travel Ahmed Shakir was unavailable for comment.
The Civil Court ruling on whether or not the Judicial Service Commission is guilty of neglecting its Constitutional responsibilities has been delayed indefinitely because the court lacks an official seal with which to stamp the decision.
The Civil Court has been shut for business since President Mohamed Nasheed ratified the Judicature Act on Thursday due to a change in the Court’s name from Arabic to English. A Dhivehi word is not in use to refer to it.
Until President Nasheed signed the Judicature Act into law, the official name of the court had been Madhanee Court – ‘madhanee’ being the Arabic word for ‘civil’.
The Judicature Act, passed by the Majlis on 4 October, uses the English word ‘civil’ instead of the Arabic word ‘madhanee’ to refer to the court.
The Civil Court stopped its work once the Judicature Act came into force as it does not have an official seal bearing its new name with which to stamp its hearings and other official documents.
The Family Court and the Criminal Court, too, are suffering the same plight of being unable to rubber stamp their decisions after the name change.
A period of seventeen days was available between the Majlis passing the Judicature Act and President Nasheed ratifying it in which the seals could have been made.
Treasure Island Ltd is suing the JSC for professional negligence, alleging that it failed to investigate complaints of misconduct against two judges, one of whom is the former head of JSC and former Surpreme Court Justice Mujthaz Fahmy.
The JSC is an independent body Constitutionally mandated to oversee the judiciary and maintain its ethical and disciplinary standards.
Judge Mariyam Nihayath of the Civil Court, who on October 19 refused to admit additional infromation offered by potential JSC whistleblower, President’s member Aishath Velezinee, was set to hold a further hearing on the case today.
It is not known when the courts will have the necessary tools with which to resume justice.
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