The Democrats denies SC jurisdiction on MDP lawsuit

The Democrats do not believe the Supreme Court has jurisdiction in accepting the constitutional lawsuit filed by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) seeking legal interpretation of the parliament's regulation.

At Monday's Supreme Court hearing on the case, advocate Abdulla Shaair, representing The Democrats which has intervened into the MDP-filed lawsuit, said that procedurally the top court does not have jurisdiction in accepting the case.

MDP filed the lawsuit after the parliament secretariat parked the no-confidence motion against Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed. The secretariat earlier chose to park the motion since Deputy Speaker Eva Abdulla was on leave of absence due to contracting dengue fever.

The parliament secretariat chose to table the budget bills, since its legally allowed date was before the end of October. However, MDP which holds parliament majority, did not allow Vilufushi MP, who presided as the sitting's chair, to proceed.

Shaair said the advocate teams of the intervening parties which include Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and People's National Congress (PNC), and The Democrats, which was accepted to intervene sometime on Monday, did not get sufficient time to assess the documents presented by the parties.

He requested additional time to assess the documents, and present the points The Democrats wants to highlight in detail.

Justice Mahaz Ali Zahir, who is the chair of the Supreme Court judges' bench that presides over the lawsuit, concluded Monday's hearing after this scheduling the next hearing for 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, November 7.

On Monday's hearing, parliament's Council General Fathimath Filza argued that the Deputy Speaker should preside as the chair for the no-confidence sitting against the Speaker according to the parliament regulation, and added that the regulation should first be amended to act differently.

She also argued that when Article 82 of the Constitution ensures the absence of conflict of interest in a no-confidence motion against the Speaker by way of barring the Speaker from presiding as the chair of the sitting. Filza said that when the constitutional provision ensured no conflict of interest, the contradictory provision in the parliamentary regulation was allowed by the parliament for a specific agenda.

Though MDP believed no other matter in the parliament can proceed without first addressing the no-confidence motion, Filza argued that there was no legal intervention to proceed with regular sittings.

She argued this was because Nasheed's no-confidence motion has not progressed in a parliament sitting so far.

"We need to bring an amendment to the regulation, and we have suggested for it," Filza added.

At the hearing, Attorney General's Office advocate, representing the parliament, requested from the court to hold that the parliamentary regulation was misinterpreted that led to the interruption of parliament proceedings.

In response to this, former Attorney General and the legal representative of PPM/PNC coalition, Azima Shukoor criticized the current AG.

Azima first took an objection of procedure, and argued that due to the differing opinions of the parliament and its legal representative, the government's stand on the matter is ambiguous. However, the objection was overruled by the judges' bench.

As the legal representative of one of the intervening parties to the lawsuit, Azima said the parliament has been in a deadlock since June 2023, and the presidential election concluded while the deadlock persisted.

She acknowledged that this was due to the misinterpretation of the parliament regulation, and argued that the court should refer to the lack of action taken to remedy this until now.