Comment: Abuse of Article 285 makes us all complicit in the state of our judiciary

But the abuse of the Constitution which gave rise to ‘Justice’ Abdulla Mohammed did not occur when he was arrested on 16 January 2012. It happened on August 7, 2010, when Article 285 of the Constitution, which required the judiciary to be cleansed of the unqualified and the criminal by that date was allowed to lapse without so much as a murmur from the general public or the civil society. That was the time when we should have cried foul, when the NGOs, the Human Rights Commission, and learned members of the judiciary should have come out to protest the abuse of our democracy.

But no one did, except for a lone individual who was mocked, ostracised and finally stabbed in the back for her efforts. It was on this day that we began our journey on this crooked path, it was then that we all became complicit in today’s actions – we knowingly allowed criminals, child molesters, fraudsters and mobsters to remain on the benches of our courts. We did this, and now, as we confront the consequences of our (in)actions, we conveniently forget our role in it.

The 2008 Maldivian Constitution must be one of the most abused such documents in the history of democracy. Within the space of three years, it has become the plaything of every Mohammed, Ahmed and Fathimath within arm’s length of political power. When Parliamentarians are taken to court for embezzling millions from the public coffers, it is the Constitution that is cited as containing no stipulation that makes lying or fraud a crime. When opposition leaders malign the executive and the country itself with baseless lies, it is the Constitution that is once again cited; its provision of freedom of expression held up as freedom to defame with impunity. When religious intolerance is exercised to such high levels that living a life free of fear is all but impossible for a Maldivian in the Maldives, it is the Constitution that is once again cited as the source for legitimising such repression.