The flogging of a 15-year-old rape victim: a legislative or institutional failure?

Maldives shocked the world in February this year when its Juvenile Court sentenced a 15-year-old girl, also a victim of rape, to flogging by a 100 lashes for the crime of fornication. This is an article contributed to Dhivehi Sitee by #OperationEndherima, a social media movement of Maldivians concerned by the sentence. It looks at existing legal mechanisms for protecting the rights of children and, in light of these, challenges the claim by the State that it is lack of law rather than institution failure that led to the flogging sentence.

The author wishes to remain anonymous, and wrote the original article in Dhivehi, a PDF version of which can be read here. I have translated it into English below for you.

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Supreme Court of the Maldives, a grave blunder

The facts on the appointment of the Supreme Court of the Maldives, as observed by Aishath Velezinee from her seat on the Judicial Service Commission  

This is an article by Aishath Velezinee, recounting how the Supreme Court bench was appointed on 10 August 2010, as seen from her position as a member of the Judicial Service Commission. It provides valuable insight into the Maldivian democracy’s current woes with the Supreme Court, and the political machinations that often become impediments on the path of constitutional democracy.

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It’s the judiciary, stupid

by Azra Naseem

We had information that on 8 February Mohamed Nasheed would close other courts in the Maldives, send all judges home, and acting on his own, would establish a Judicial Reform Commission. From then onwards, it would be this Commission that would appoint all magistrates. ~2013 Presidential Candidate, Umar Naseer (PPM).

I learned about President Nasheed’s intention to establish a Judicial Reform Commission—or in whatever name it maybe—only after the government changed. ~ 2013 Presidential Candidate, Abdulla Yameen (PPM)

We don’t know for sure whether Mohamed Nasheed was planning to form a Judicial Reform Commission on 8 February 2012 or not. But, leaders of the National Alliance, especially PPM, have made it clear what motivated them most to be out on the streets protesting until Nasheed’s government ended was the prospect of Nasheed making changes to the judiciary .

Many ‘intelligence-based’ reasons were offered  for the National Alliance’s opposition to the expected changes: Nasheed’s Judicial Reform Commission was going to be totally under his control; it was a way for Nasheed to usurp judicial power; it was Nasheed’s means of destroying the judiciary.

Truth of the matter is all parties in the National Alliance would have been opposed to judicial reform in whatever form it came.

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