Supreme Court has ruled in favour of eight appointees to the 16th parliament on 13 March 2012, citing that their removal was unconstitutional and ordered the salaries of these appointees be paid from the time of their removal until the new parliament convened.
Formerly, the Maldives’ parliament had eight appointees to the parliament by the president, according to the old constitution. When former President Mohamed Nasheed was sworn in to the office, he removed the eight MPs appointed by his predecessor Gayoom and replaced them with his own set of appointees. This was before the parliament was elected under the new constitution. The election took place on March 9, 2009.
The removed appointees argued that their removal was against the newly ratified constitution of 2008’s article 294 and had initially filed the case in Supreme Court on 12 November 2008, by MP Rozaina Adam and MP Ahmed Mahloof, both who are currently sitting elected MPs.
The article 294 clause (a) of the constitution which is under the ‘Transitional Matters’ chapter states: “The People’s Majlis [Parliament] in existence at the commencement of this Constitution shall continue until such time as the first elections of the People’s Majlis under this Constitution are held, and election of members and assumption of office by the members.”
However the case was later sent to the Civil Court and the court ruled in favor of Nasheed’s government stating the president had the authority to remove the members and appoint his own until the first parliamentary elections is held under the ratified constitution.
The case was later appealed in the High Court on January 4, 2009. The High Court also supported the Civil Court’s verdict and upheld the ruling on 08 February 2009.
The parties then filed to appeal the case to Supreme Court on April 12, 2009.
In the Supreme Court Ruling, a 3 to 2 majority decision was reached by the five member bench which consisted of Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz Hussain, Justice Abdullah Saeed (former interim chief justice), Justice Abdullah Areef, Justice Ali Hameed Mohamed and Justice Dr Ahmed Abdullah Didi.
Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz Hussain and Justice Abdullah Areef had a deferring opinion which was in support of the High Court Ruling.
Nasheed removed the appointees on 11 November 2008, just a few hours after he was sworn in.
With the Supreme Court ruling, the 8 MPs will now be paid the salary of an MP from the time of their removal until the next parliament was elected on May 9, 2009.
According to the parliament secretariat, salary of an MP at the time of the removal of appointees was RF 62,500 (USD 4053).
If the former MPs are to be paid according to the Supreme court ruling, they are entitled to get the salary of seven months which would be counted from the day they were removed (11 November 2008) to the convening of the first session of the 17th parliament (27 May 2009).
This means each of these parties would receive a sum of RF 437,500 (US$28,372).
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