High Court accepts EC’s file for appeal over election postponement

High Court announced this Thursday that it has accepted Elections Commission (EC)’s file for appeal over the Civil Court order to postpone upcoming Local Council Election by two months.

Information officer of High Court, Ameen Faisal has confirmed the file for appeal has been accepted by the court.

EC was initially asked amend the documents submitted to the court, and its file for amendment was accepted after EC made the amendments and resubmitted the documents.

During the Civil Court case, EC protested against Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) lawsuit to postpone the election, saying such a postponement would result in irrevocable damage to EC and gross wastage of State funds.

PPM argued that important documents of the party had gone missing, rendering them unable to prepare for the election in time.

Civil Court ruled that the loss to PPM, the largest political party in Maldives over missing out the council election outweighed the loss to EC if the election is postponed.

It also said that though EC claimed a postponement would result in irrevocable loss to EC, it had failed to explain the loss to the court.

Meanwhile, member of EC, Ahmed Akram reported last week that the political parties in the national advisory committee of EC had asked EC to withdraw its file for appeal.

However, Secretary-General of the main opposition party, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), Anas Abdul Sattar refuted the claim, saying that MDP had given no such advice, but had merely asked EC to expedite announcement of a new date for the election.

Local Council Election was originally scheduled to be held on January 14, 2017.