Parliament of Maldives has scheduled a bill seeking to grant legal powers to two presidential commissions.
The bill is put on agenda for the first time since the new parliament was sworn in, after being removed from the agenda thrice over the failure to meet the quorum. The failure to pass such a crucial bill targeted negative comments towards the parliament. However, the government has revealed plans to exert more efforts to pass the bill seeking legal powers to presidential commissions, with the new parliament sworn in last Tuesday.
The bill seeks to grant legal powers to Commission on Investigation of Murder and Enforced Disappearances established aiming to investigate the cases that were not given a preferable amount of attention to fully investigate the murdered individuals and disappeared people from January 1, 2012 to November 17, 2018 and the Commission of Corruption and Asset Recovery aimed at recovering state assets and investigating corruption of government officials.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Commission on Investigation of Murder and Enforced Disappearances revealed the motive of the murders have been identified, although there are challenges are forwarding the case to Prosecutor General's Office to raise charges as the commissions have no such mandate.
In addition to the bill to grant legal powers to two presidential commissions, several other bills are put on agenda of the next parliament sitting, scheduled for next Monday, which includes a bill to provide benefits for former vice presidents and an amendment to Judges Act. The two bills were rejected by the president when passed from the parliament and sent for reconsideration. The two bills were sent back to parliament as it contradicts the spirit of the constitution, according to the government.