MP files emergency motion in opposition of appointment of female justices

Nolhivaram MP Mohamed Nasheed Abdulla has filed an emergency motion at the Parliament in opposition of the President’s decision to nominate two women as Supreme Court justices.

MP Nasheed’s emergency motion was accepted into the Parliament for debate with the majority vote of 52 parliamentarians this Monday.

MP Nasheed argues that the religion of Islam is the basis of the Maldivian Constitution, and that the Constitution prohibits the enactment of any law which violates the principles of Islam.

He cites the recent ruling by the Supreme Council on Islamic Fatwa of Maldives that the appointment of women as judges is haram, and that both the women appointment judges and the persons who make the appointment will be held in condemnation.

He also notes that several local Islamic scholars have declared the appointment of women as judges to be prohibited in Islam.

He says that President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s decision to seek the Judicial Service Commission (JSC)’s advice on appointment of Dr. Azmiralda Zahir and Aisha Shujoon to the Supreme Court therefore violated the principles of Islam and Sharia law.

After presenting the emergency motion, MP Nasheed said he made the decision to file the emergency motion after doing his due diligence, and based on his firm conviction of the wrongfulness of such a decision.

He also said that no female judges had been appointed judges “in five generations in Islamic history”, and asked whether “anyone like Azmiralda and Shujoon” hadn’t been born during the time.

Speaking regarding the emergency motion, Speaker of Parliament, former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, who has personally expressed his support for the President's decision, said that the issue had created confusion within the general public which he felt was the Parliament’s duty to clear.

He said that some of the information regarding the subject had been uploaded to the online portal for parliamentarians, and that he was working on obtaining an opinion from the Supreme Council on Islamic Fatwa regarding the subject.