Judiciary Employee Fired For Social Media Posts Criticising President Solih

An administrative officer of the Hulhumalé Magistrate Court has been dismissed from his job for publicly criticising President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Majlis Speaker Mohamed Nasheed.

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) had requested that action be taken against the administrative officer, who posts his views on social media under the nickname “Pokman”.

By law, issues pertaining to judicial staff should be initiated by the office or department where the staff works. The JSC’s initiative in taking action against the staff was against the law; although the JSC has the authority to investigate cases of judicial misconduct, it has no authority over the judiciary’s administration matters or over the judiciary’s staff.

The case against this staff began with an email sent by the JSC to the Judicial Administration Human Resources department on 28 June 2020.

The 12-page report of the investigation into Pokman’s activities on social media contains screenshots and analyses of several of his posts on the Facebook and Twitter accounts that he maintains.

The reports highlighted that Pokman’s posts were insulting to President Solih and cast the president in a negative light, and some of his posts were interpreted as being written to convey a specific political message.

The report had concluded that Pokman’s posts violated the law, and had recommended on 14 September 2020 that action be taken against the employee. However, after almost a year, Pokman was dismissed from his job today, on the Solih administration’s third anniversary.

As a presidential candidate on the campaign trail in 2018, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had vowed to not take action against state employees for expressing their political views publicly. He had criticised President Yameen, claiming that his administration curbed freedom of expression. “There is no freedom in today’s workplace”, he had said. “Government jobs have forced employees to do things only as they are told. Speaking the truth and rejecting injustice has been made a crime”, he had said.

On occasion of today being the third anniversary of the Solih administration, a statement released by the ruling MDP read that one of the main achievements of the government was that people were now free to express their political views.