The Attorney General has recommended that any MP with a vested interest in the Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed should not be allowed to chair the session that could remove the Speaker from his post.
This comes after the MP for Vilifushi Constituency Hassan Afeef rejected a no-confidence resolution submitted against Speaker Nasheed by MDP at a Parliamentary session held yesterday after the Parliament Minority leader MP for Central Henveiru Constituency Ali Azim questioned the legality of the document.
Both MP Afeef and Azim belong to the Democrats and Speaker Nasheed also belongs to the same party.
The rejected resolution was submitted to a second session chaired by the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Eva Abdullah, who is also from the Democrats, and was subsequently rejected citing the initial rejection.
MDP then moved to submit the matter to the Committee on Members Privileges and Ethics which unanimously found that both MPs Afeef and Eva had violated the privileges of other MPs and also sought recommendations from the Committee on General Purpose on halting MPs with a vested interest in Nasheed from chairing a session that seeks his removal.
The General Purpose committee then turned to the Attorney General for his view on the matter.
In a social media post last night, Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath said that a resolution seeking the removal of the Speaker does not follow the technicalities mentioned in Articles 167,168, and 169 of the Parliament Standing Order.
He further said that the only conditions for such a resolution are for it to have the signatures of one-fourth of the total MPs or more and that the resolution states why the Speaker should be removed from his post.
The Attorney General said that it is vital to prioritize the importance of not allowing any MP who is refusing to chair the session and any MP with a conflict of interest to chair the session seeking the removal of the Speaker.
Though the resolution to remove the Speaker has been rejected twice by the Parliament, the Parliament Secretariate has once again put the resolution back on the agenda for a session scheduled for later today.
