High Court: Detainees cannot be released from custody for health reasons

The High Court has ruled that those detained until the end of their trial cannot be released from custody due to health reasons.

Many of those detained until the end of their trial are remanded in custody every 30 days. Detainees in custody stating health reasons and due to complaints of inadequate health treatment in prison, they are ordered to be released from lower courts. There are High Court rulings that this can be done.

However, the High Court ruled that this could not be done henceforth after two defendants in the 130 kilo drug case were released by the lower court.

Two High Court judges ruled that when the detention period is reviewed, it is only necessary to investigate whether the reason for the detention remains and that there are no legal rules that require health reasons to be taken into account. It was also ruled that equality would be lost if the judges were given this power without specifying it in the law.

chief judge hathif Hilmy and judge Hussain Shaheed noted in their argument when making decisions in remand cases courts should disregard previous decisions made by the high court regarding remand for medical reasons.

According to the ruling, the detention process should not be used to hold corrections accountable for the lack of health treatment for detainees. If there are complaints of lack of treatment in prison, the solution will be found by submitting a separate civil case to the Civil Court.

The High Court noted that this policy had been followed in the past, as an example of which two cases were filed with the Civil Court by former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb and others for not receiving proper medical treatment in prison.

"This is the way to find solutions to such civil cases," the ruling stated.

However, judge Hassan Shafeeu, who was also on the bench, differed on the ruling. He believed that even if a health reason was not required to be released from custody as a matter of policy, in some such cases the detention period might have to be eased.

Judge Shafeeu said that while everyone has the right to medical treatment and protection of their mental wellbeing, the remand can be eased in cases of medical conditions. He wrote that previous high court decisions had only permitted this for urgent circumstances.

"I don't think it's the best way to completely disregard health situations of detainees when amending their remand period," he wrote.