Preparations are underway to petition the high court to revoke a letter sent by president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to the Mauritius prime minister recognizing the country's sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago.
The case was first filed at the Supreme Court on April 27 on behalf of presidential candidate and former home minister Umar Naseer along with Mohamed Musthaq and retired liutenant colonel Zubair Ahmed Manik.
But the court's registrar decided that the case could not be registered at the Supreme Court. Lawyers representing Umar asked the Supreme Court's council of judges to review the registrar's decision.
Umar Naseer told Adhadhu that the Supreme Court clarified that the high court has the jurisdiction to hear the constitutional case in the first stage. Preparations are now underway to file the case at the high court.
"Our lawyers are preparing and getting ready to file the case at the high court as soon as possible," Umar said.
The Supreme Court was petitioned to declare that the president's letter to the Mauritius prime minister was unconstitutional.
According to the case documents, the point raised to back the argument was article three of the constitution, which states that any changes to the territory of the Maldives must be approved by at least a two-thirds majority of parliament.
"There is no doubt that territorial changes include omitting a part of the territory, adding a part to the territory, and making any changes to the rights afforded to Maldivians in relation to international seas," the case stated.
The dispute
The decision by the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to demarcate a border between the Maldives and Mauritius amounted to ITLOS agreeing that Mauritius had sovereignty over Chagos. It was this that the Maldives objected to during the first stage of the dispute.
The Maldives stand at the time was that ITLOS lacked jurisdiction to hear the case as sovereignty over Chagos was in dispute. But ITLOS rejected the Maldives' objection and proceeded with the case. The Maldives changed the stand after that.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2019 calling for the implementation of an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Mauritius should have sovereignty over Chagos. Along with Britain, the Maldives, America, Australia, Hungary and Israel voted against the resolution.
Mauritius petitioned various international forums to seek sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago, which was not a part of the country when it gained independence from Britain and established a state. The case filed with the ICJ was one such attempt.
The ITLOS judgment
Neither the Maldives nor Chagos has the full 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and there is an overlapping area of about 92,000 square kilometers.
A maritime border was never demarcated because of the longstanding sovereignty dispute over Chagos.
In cases where countries do not agree on determining a boundary, international norms say "equidistance" must be followed. The main dispute between the countries at ITLOS concerned the baselines for determining the boundary.
In Mauritius's proposal, the base point was a low-tide elevation called Bleinhem Reef. The Maldives objected to this, arguing that a base point could not be set at reefs visible in low tide.
In its judgment, ITLOS supported the arguments made by the Maldives. The judgment delivered by a special chamber of ITLOS held that there were no grounds to draw the equidistant line from a low-tide reef to determine the boundary.
The ITLOS judgment divided the 92,563 square kilometers overlapping area with 47,232 kilometers to the Maldives and 45,331 kilometers to Mauritius.
