The Youth Wing of the Maldivian Democratic Party expresses concern over the Criminal Court’s ignorance of constitutionally stipulated rights and legal precedents.

The 14 individuals arrested at the Usfasgandu area on Friday, 1 February were arbitrarily arrested and had their detentions extended without consideration to; habeus corpus cases filed, precedents set by the Supreme Court elaborating on constitutional rights of detainees, and various sections (16, 17, 19, 20, 27, 32, 45-48, 65, 68, 69, 299 and 268) of the Constitution.

The MDP’s Youth Wing notes again that the defence presented by the lawyers for the 14 individuals detained were not considered in the Criminal Court’s ruling and finds it disturbing that the presiding Judge would choose not to consider claims of illegality of arrest at a hearing to determine whether the arrest was made lawfully. This issue has been further exacerbated by the High Court in what seems like a deliberate bid to delay the detainees’ appeal process. The High Court stated, in writing that that documents for the appeal cases filed on Monday were in order, but then reversed this decision late Tuesday afternoon.

The law and due process operate on precedents and judicial consistency, and yet we see members of the Maldivian judiciary purposefully overlook such precedents and instead serve consistent injustice.

MDP’s Youth Wing call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained.

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