Respect has to be earned :: Maldives News :: Dhivehi Observer

Nashid Column

Respect has to be earned

by Dr. Ibrahim Nashid - ibrahimnash@gmail.com, G. Keneree Ge, Male', 20 November 2005

The justice minister of the Maldives is of the opinion that trust and respect for the legal institutions cannot be gained by only strengthening the laws and regulations of the country but would also require a change in the public's perception of these institutions. In a sense he is very correct. However, from reading his statements, one gets the impression that he assumes the problem lies with the public. Is the minister not aware that trust and respect can only be earned by actions over many years? Disrespecting the laws that are there to protect the rights of the citizens is certainly not the way to go about earning respect and trust. The intention behind Act 5/78, which describes the procedure to be followed to detaining a person for more than seven days, was to strengthen the rights of citizen and to prevent the police from arbitrarily arresting somebody and keeping that person in detention for as long they wish and releasing the person without charge. The spirit of the law was to protect the citizen from wrongful detention. Unfortunately the reality today is very different. Over the years police and the judges have colluded in making this law completely meaningless. The situation has now gone beyond the point of ridicule whereby the judges travel to the detention centres in the company of the torturers and give a verbal authorisation to extend the detention period. All of this is done without even bothering to identify themselves as a judge. When this is the practice would any citizen in their right minds trust a judicial system which can bend so easily to accommodate their torturers? The citizenry may be forced to obey, but their respect will never be earned in this manner. Another example is the law that entitles to legal representation. According to this law the accused has the right to have a lawyer during all stages of the interrogation. We all know that this happens very seldom and only in very high profile cases. The vast majority of detainees are verbally abused by the police if they ask for legal representation. The government further ensures that the detainees cannot have legal representation by restricting lawyers with government jobs from representing clients against the state. The independent few are harassed by the police to ensure that they will not interfere with the abuse of the state.

The minister also said that there would not be any political bias in trials and sentencing in the future despite the fact that the head of the judiciary is the leader of a political party and the minister of justice a minister of that party. If the minister wants to prove this, would he be brave enough to reopen the cases of Jennifer Latheef and the others who were sentenced with her? As the whole world knows, their trial was unfair at best and heavily influenced by the current political climate of the Maldives.

Not only the minister of justice but also the office of the president announced yet another “reform” that would bring justice to the Maldivian people. The Judicial Services Commission proposed by Gayoom is another half hearted attempt at a meaningless reform that is too little and too late. Due to the many abuses of the past, anything less than a clean separation of powers in this area is not going to be enough to convince a skeptical public.

It would be fair to say that the people have had enough of presidential commissions and have lost all faith in presidential enquiries. As a result of the presidential enquiry into the killing of Evan Naseem and the prisoners in Maafushi prison, the NSS officers involved in the killings were put on trial. Unfortunately, before we could put our faith in such enquiries, the Commissioner of Police intervened to undermine the trial. The killing of Muaviath Mahmood, before those accused of Evan Naseem's killing could be sentenced, was really the last straw that broke the camel's back. It made everybody realise that the purpose of the presidential enquiry was not to tackle the problem of torture and ill-treatment in the detention centres, but to find scapegoats. The Human Rights Commission of the Maldives was created with much fanfare to protect the rights of the citizen but is now yet another defunct commission.

After so many years of deceit the people are reluctant to give in to yet another promise from Gayoom's government. We need changes and reforms that address the causes of the problems that we are facing today and not simple knee-jerk reactions to appease a critical international public. We need actions that would give us hope of lasting effect. Then only can we begin to believe and trust.

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