Sunday
17th Nov 2024
Dhivehi Edition
Dr.Ahmed, the former Chief Justice of the Maldives.
Previous Chief Justice of the Madlives, Dr. Ahmed Abdulla Didi has stated that President Yameen Abdul Gayyoom should not remain in custody and that he should be released following bail immediately.
President Yameen’s lawyers appealed to the High Court of Maldives to overturn his sentence and has requested President Yameen be released until the appeal process concedes. Despite this, the majority of the judges bench decided not to grant President Yameen release on bail.
Regarding this case President Yameen’s lawyers have presented precedence that bail had been approved for pending appeals, quoting upon the case of Faris Maumoon in which Faris was granted bail during an appeal.
Dr. Ahmed tweeted out that there are no legal grounds under which President Yameen should remain in jail. He stated that once a criminal verdict is appealed at any higher court, the execution of the sentence should be halted and further noted that as per Article 51 of the Constitution of the Maldives everyone should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
And even in relevance to this article, the people who can be placed in remand would be so with precedence under Article 49 of the Constitution. He further noted that such remands are not part of carrying out a sentence.
Along with this, Article 49 and 48 should be taken as precedence and President Yameen should be released from jail. Article 68 is the right to exist in society and the pending appeal bail is how the rest of the world commonly operates.
President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom was convicted for 5 years in jail in the month of November 2019 and when the sentence was appealed in a higher court, the higher court ruled to keep the sentence as it is. This is now being appealed at the Supreme Court.