Comment: Political impasse between government and opposition weakens human rights safeguards
04 Feb 2012, 11:16 AM
Abbas Faiz
The current stand off between the government and the opposition on how to secure the independence of the judiciary is hampering the much needed reform of the country’s criminal justice system.
Neither the government, nor the parliament or the judiciary can take pride in maintaining an outdated justice system that lacks a codified body of laws capable of providing justice equally to all.
Current laws are mainly remnants of acts of parliament passed at the time of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom when the country’s legal system was even less developed and more prone to political influence. Laws also include religious injunctions, regulations passed by ministries, some acts of parliament passed in recent years, and the 2008 Constitution. Even so, these laws cover penal areas only partially. Some are too vaguely formulated to prevent miscarriages of justice.
Most judges have no formal training in law but exercise considerable discretion – often based on their own interpretation of religious law – in deciding what constitutes an offence and the punishment for it.
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