Shiyam: Amendment making impeachment easier unlawful

Fisheries Minister, former parliamentarian Ahmed Shiyam has described the Parliament’s General Purpose Committee decision to greenlight the amendment which will make the process of impeaching the president and the vice president easier as unlawful.

If the Committee approved amendments are passed on the floor, MDP, which holds the parliament’s majority, can easily impeach the president or the vice president solely with their votes.

Expressing concern over the matter in a post on X, Minister Shiyam described the General Purpose Committee’s decision as blatantly unlawful.

He said that the total number of parliament members is calculated as stipulated in Article 71 of the constitution, adding it was out of bounds for the General Purpose Committee to make a decision referring to the total number of the parliament members.

The Committee had decided to amend articles 49, 202 and 203 of the parliament’s regulations.

The amendment to Article 49 which provided that the total number of members of parliament should be calculated on the basis of the total number of members instead of seats was put forth by Ihavandhoo MP Mohamed Shifaau, a lawmaker representing MDP.

His amendment sought to omit the members who have resigned while calculating the total number of members of the parliament.

Six members of the parliament had resigned to assume posts in the new administration.

Meanwhile, the amendments to articles 202 and 203 were proposed by the parliament group leader of the Democrats, Central Henvieru MP Ali Azim. They were approved as follows;

• The impeachment of the president or the vice president can only be proceeded once a motion, explaining the reason, with the signatures of one-third of the members is submitted

          (Existing procedure)

• Giving 14-day notice of the motion to the president or the vice president within two days, and tabling the motion for the first working day after the expiration of the notice period

• Allocating a maximum of three hours for the debate on the impeachment motion

Additionally, the number of members on the committee the motion needs to be forwarded to after the floor passes the impeachment motion has been decreased from 11 to four. Prior to this, all political parties must be represented on the committee. The new amendment has omitted this requirement.

The amendment has not yet been forwarded to the parliament floor.