The High Court has today ruled that the Civil Court does have the jurisdiction to preside over a lawsuit filed by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Alhan Fahmy against his party.
Feydhoo MP Alhan is seeking the annulment of the opposition party’s primary for the Feydhoo constituency in Addu City.
Speaking to Minivan News today, Alhan said there were two cases related to the lawsuit filed at the Civil Court being reviewed in the High Court, and that the court had today concluded one case while he had withdrawn the other.
The case concluded today was the appeal by the MDP claiming that the Civil Court could not proceed because Alhan had not completed all the internal party procedures, such as appealing at the party’s appeal committee.
”During the hearings held in the Civil Court, I requested the court to issue a warrant to temporarily invalidate the candidacy of the person who won the MDP primary and the court said that it did not have the jurisdiction to do so and that the High Court will have the jurisdiction to issue such an injunction,’’ Alhan said.
“So I filed a case with the High Court on March 6 and 11 days later the court held a hearing and I told the court that now it was too late to issue the injunction and that I wished to withdraw the case.’’
Alhan said that the case going on in the Civil Court has almost reached an end and that during the next hearing the court would deliver a verdict.
Shortly after announcing his decision to contest the primary result, Alhan was stabbed in Malé while at the Breakwater cafe in the artificial beach area. During the attack, Alhan received stab wounds to the back and was quickly flown to Sri Lanka for spinal surgery.
When Minivan News inquired about his condition he said that his left leg was still paralysed and that he now has to use a walking stick.
“Doctors say it will take six or seven months to recover, I have been doing physiotherapy,’’ he said.
Alhan has had a chequered recent past with the MDP, rejoining the party in June last year after an apparently acrimonious departure in April of the previous year.
Then party vice president, Alhan was ejected – alongside then party President Dr Ibrahim Didi – after the pair publicly questioned the party’s official interpretation of the February 7 ousting of President Mohamed Nasheed.
The Feydhoo MP subsequently organised a rally – sparsely attended – calling for the freeing of the MDP from its talismanic leader Nasheed. Alhan’s soon joined the government-aligned Jumhooree Party,
Alhan was initially elected to parliament on a Dhivehi Rayithunge Party (DRP) ticket, making him one of the few MPs to have been a member of almost every major political party represented in parliament, barring the DRP’s splinter party, the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM).
He was dismissed from the DRP in 2010 for breaking the party’s whip line in a no-confidence vote against then Foreign Minister, Dr Ahmed Shaheed
(0)Dislikes
(0)