Why Muizzu’s information commissioner pick should alarm everyone

President Dr Mohamed Muizzu submitted Abdul Azeez’s name to parliament on 23 August 2026 to replace incumbent Information Commissioner Ahmed Ahid Rasheed, whose five-year term expires on 6 September 2026. Applications for the post were opened from 3 August to 16 August. Abdul Azeez, a former lawmaker, was the country’s first Information Commissioner, appointed on 22 July 2014. He served until 22 July 2019. He was a state minister at the Ministry of Dhivehi Language, Culture and Heritage when he was nominated last week.

Parliament’s independent institutions committee approved his nomination last Sunday (24 August 2026), after interviewing him and awarding him more than 75 per cent of the marks available. Five committee members voted to forward his name to the parliament floor. The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party’s Galolhu South MP Meekail Ahmed Naseem was the only member present to vote against the nomination. The committee process itself also drew criticism after parliament opened the window for public complaints on 23 August but allowed only six hours, with submissions closing at 6.00pm the same day. Transparency Maldives was among those that submitted objections.

Azeez was approved in a 47-11 vote last Wednesday.

The more fundamental question is whether Abdul Azeez can legally be appointed again. Section 46(a) of the Right to Information Act states that an Information Commissioner is appointed for one term of five years, while subsection (b) allows the appointment to be renewed for an additional period of up to five years.

Critics argue that the provision allows the term of a serving commissioner to be extended, rather than permitting someone who completed a five-year term years earlier to return through an entirely new appointment process. Abdul Azeez completed his first term on 22 July 2019, and President Muizzu is due to appoint him again more than seven years later. The legal concern was also raised during the committee meeting on 24 August, where questions were raised over whether the Act permits a second, separate appointment after a completed term.

His political appointment raises another issue. The RTI Act prohibits the Information Commissioner from holding a political position or another job while serving as commissioner, yet when President Muizzu nominated Abdul Azeez on 23 August, he was still serving, and remained publicly listed, as a state minister.

The issue is particularly significant because the Information Commissioner is expected to independently adjudicate disputes involving government ministries, agencies and other state institutions, including cases where those institutions refuse to disclose information.

Beyond the legality of a second appointment, Abdul Azeez’s record during his first tenure from 2014 to 2019 has drawn renewed scrutiny. One of the Information Commissioner’s most consequential responsibilities is hearing appeals when state institutions refuse to disclose information or breaches the Act, with open hearings providing a public forum to examine those disputes.

Transparency Maldives told parliament on 23 August that the first public hearing during Abdul Azeez’s five-year tenure was held only towards the end of his term. The organisation said the RTI Act was not fully implemented under his leadership, limiting the public’s ability to exercise the constitutional right to information.

His tenure also saw poor compliance with one of the Act’s central transparency requirements: proactive disclosure. The RTI Act requires state institutions to routinely publish specified categories of information without forcing members of the public to submit individual information requests.

Yet by the end of Abdul Azeez’s tenure in 2019, no state institution had achieved full compliance with the mandatory minimum proactive disclosure requirements in the assessments cited by critics of his nomination. The failure was especially significant because proactive disclosure is intended to reduce dependence on formal RTI requests by requiring state bodies to make basic information routinely available to the public.

There were also concerns over the mechanism citizens were expected to use to request information. Transparency Maldives told parliament on 23 August that the information request form developed under Abdul Azeez’s leadership hindered rather than facilitated the exercise of the right to information.

The RTI Act requires procedures for seeking information to be accessible and prohibits requirements that create unreasonable barriers, inconvenience or delay for applicants.

The criticism is particularly notable in light of Abdul Azeez’s comments during his parliamentary interview on 24 August. He told the committee that, if appointed, he intended to strengthen proactive disclosure so information would be made public before citizens had to request it. He said public hearings should be held when information could not otherwise be obtained.

Abdul Azeez also said he had sought the post again because principles he followed during his first tenure had subsequently been lost and that he wanted to revive them. When the committee asked why he was seeking a second term, one example he cited was workplace dress standards, complaining that some women were wearing clothes that did not sufficiently cover their buttocks.

Those pledges inevitably raise the question of why the same objectives were not achieved during the five years he previously headed the office between July 2014 and July 2019. Transparency Maldives formally urged Parliament on 23 August to reject his nomination and reopen the application process, saying it did not consider him the most suitable candidate.

The nomination also comes at a sensitive moment for the independence of the Information Commissioner’s Office. Incumbent commissioner Ahmed Ahid Rasheed is due to leave office on 6 September, after a tenure in which President Muizzu publicly criticised him over decisions ordering the President’s Office and other government institutions to disclose information and accused him of acting as an opposition agent. Ahid rejected the allegation and maintained that he was just implementing the RTI Act.

Only days before Abdul Azeez’s nomination, on 17 August 2026, the Information Commissioner’s Office launched a new Strategic Action Plan running through 2031, aimed at expanding access to government information and strengthening the institution. The office reported that of 712 complaints filed in 2025, 487 concerned state institutions failing to respond to information requests.

The Information Commissioner is supposed to serve as the public’s independent referee when the state refuses to disclose information. The question before parliament was therefore larger than whether Abdul Azeez is qualified on paper.

It was whether the law permits a former commissioner to return for what would effectively be a second five-year term, whether a serving political appointee is the appropriate choice to lead an independent oversight institution, and whether a commissioner whose previous tenure was marked by refusal to hold public hearings, weak proactive disclosure and concerns over the implementation of the RTI Act should be entrusted with the office again.

​​Aimon Latheef is a human rights activist who has worked with civil society organisations such as UNDP Maldives, Transparency Maldives and the Association for Democracy in the Maldives, and has served on the executive board of several others. For the past six years, his focus has been on the Right to Information. He submitted over 700 RTI requests to numerous state institutions. He also led several research projects looking into the implementation of the law. He leads a project for state accountability using RTI called Project Zinmaadhaaru and currently works as a program officer for the Information Commissioner’s Office.