Court admits confusion in agency responsible for flogging, discussing handover to another agency: Court

Criminal Court yesterday admitted that its earlier comments claiming that flogging is not a responsibility of the court was a mistake, and that discussions are now underway to handover the implementation of flogging sentences to another agency.

The court's original comments came after Prosecutor General Hussain Shameem told the parliament that it has been some time since the Criminal Court executed verdicts where convicts were ordered to be flogged, due to not having an employee dedicated for the job. Shameem's comment was in response to MP of central Hithadhoo constituency and Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) member Ibrahim Nazil who clarified how the court would implement flogging when a vacancy had been announced for an employee who would execute the punishment.

However, the court said yesterday morning that in line with the Supreme Court's regulations, it has been long since the court had stopped executing flogging verdicts. The court added that flogging was being carried out by Maldives Corrections Service. As such, no verdict would be left unexecuted due to a lack of the dedicated employee, the court said.

Since then, the court has taken back these remarks. Speaking with local media outlet 'Mihaaru', Criminal Court's media official said that the court's comments made earlier was due to a confusion and that the responsibility of flogging still lies with the Criminal Court. However, it is not being implemented at the court, the official said.

The official detailed that while there are cases which require flogging, the execution has been paused due to questions over the court implementing the verdict. As such, discussions are being held to handover the implementation process to another agency, they said.

The reason why flogging at the court is stopped at the moment is because these discussions have not yet concluded and maintained that the reason is not because there is no dedicated staff to carry out the flogging. The official further explained that the staff responsible for flogging had resigned from their job some time last month.

The court last carried out flogging in November of 2016. After that, the Supreme Court ordered that it should only be executed after exhausting all the appeal processes.

According to the official, this is no longer the case for flogging, and only applies to murder cases. In light of this, there are cases which require the court to flog those found guilty.

Since the inception of Maldives Correctional Service, execution of verdicts issued by the courts lie at the hands of the agency.

With PG Shameem saying that flogging is something to be done by the court, many raised concerns over the statement and said that implementing verdicts is not something courts should do.

Crimina Court's former judge Ismail Rasheed said that he does not believe it is in the jurisdiction of the court to seek out an employee to conduct floggings when an agency exists to implement court orders.

According to statistics from the last ten years, 33 adultery cases were heard at the Supreme Court. However, none of the accused individuals were convicted. While a total of 51 cases were heard at the High Court, only one case saw the accused individuals walk free.

Criminal Court heard 150 adultery cases by the end of March of 2023.

Even yesterday, two individuals were ordered to be flogged for adultery.