The High Court has ruled that in cases concerning sexual offences against children where there is not sufficient evidence as specified in the law, the offence can be proven in court based on circumstantial evidence.
The unanimous ruling was passed by a panel of three judges who presiding over an appeal lodged by a defendant, who had been sentenced to 10 years in jail by the Baa Atoll Fehendhoo Magistrate Court on charges of sexual abuse involving a child.
Act number 12/2009, detailing special actions to be taken in cases of sexual offenses against children, states that a minimum of 5 out of 12 types of evidence specified in Article 47 must be presented for the crime to be proven in court.
An official of the Baa Atoll Fehendhoo Magistrate Court told Minivan News that the case had been concluded by the court on June 21, 2011.
She said the incident itself involved allegations that Ali Abdul Rahman of Blue House, B. Fehendhoo had sexually abused an underage boy from the same island on July 24, 2010.
She also confirmed that the case had been concluded regardless of the required five types of evidence not having been presented, on the grounds that there was enough circumstantial evidence to prove the offence had occurred without a doubt.
Minivan News reported earlier this month a case involving an underage girl who was was sentenced under Sharia law to 100 lashes and eight months house arrest for fornication with a 29 year-old man. The man was sentenced under common law to 10 years in prison.
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If this is the a precedent,then the MP Adhil, should not be acquitted.
The said law stipulates some requirements, regardless of it, the judges needed to imprison him.
Next, we shall stipulate the constitutional age of concent. It shall relate with biology because we are dealing with humans. Now we have a situation where for the purpose crime a person is big but when the law reaches him to question him/her, they become smaller!