Legal reforms seek broader powers to probe corruption including against president

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has announced legal reforms to the Penal Code in order to facilitate broader investigations into battling corruption and illicit enrichment.

He made the announcement via a post on X on Thursday night.

In this regard, the President detailed that the amendments will be brought to section 515 of the Penal Code which criminalizes and codifies illicit gains to grant broad powers to investigate the President, members of the Cabinet, Members of Parliament, Judges, civil employees and former civil employees, suspected of gaining or having gained illicit gains.

President Muizzu, on multiple occasions, has reiterated his and his administration’s commitment to eliminating corruption from all strata of society.

In the Maldives, it is the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) that is mandated with probing into corruption cases.

Notably, Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim has recently criticized the Commission for fulfill its responsibilities, adding the incumbent People’s National Congress (PNC) administration cannot wait and watch as major acts of corruption go unpunished.

The government has submitted two bills to empower the president to appoint presidents and vice presidents to both the ACC and the Elections Commission (EC).

President and vice presidents of ACC and EC are currently elected with an internal vote taken among members of the respective commissions. And the results of the vote need to be submitted to the president and the Parliament within 28 hours. But with the legislative changes, presidents and vice presidents of the two commissions will be nominated by the country’s president. The nominations will be vetted by the Parliament and will require parliamentary approval. Resignations of presidents and vice presidents of the commissions will also need to be submitted to the country’s president.