Comment: Mutiny of the State – Maldives gets away with another Coup D’etat

A year ago the Supreme Court of the Maldives reigned supreme. The court, and at times the chief justice alone, ran wild with ‘the powers of the Supreme Cour’, citing Article 145 (c) for Supreme Court interference in all manner of issues.

Article 268 on supremacy of the Constitution binds the Supreme Court too – but both the Supreme Court andparliament majority were wilfully blind to this as they got their way, citing the Constitution to justify outrageous breaches of the Constitution.

Few among the general public in a polity with a history of authoritarian rule and unfamiliar with the concept of the rule of law understood contraventions of the Constitution, especially when the breaches were blatantly defended by the Supreme Court. In the absence of a culture of democracy it was often reduced to whatever the ‘majority’ decide – by hook or by crook.