If Deputy Speaker Eva Abdulla refuses to preside over a no-confidence motion filed by the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) to remove Speaker Mohamed Nasheed, the solution is changing the rules, the Parliament Secretariat told the Supreme Court on Monday.
The second impeachment motion filed by the MDP to remove Nasheed as Speaker remains stalled because the Secretariat interprets parliament's standing orders to mean that only the Deputy Speaker could preside over the sitting.
Deputy Speaker Eva has offered various excuses and refused to attend parliament for over a week.
In its constitutional case, the MDP petitioned the Supreme Court to declare that the insistence that only the Deputy Speaker could preside contravenes section 44 of parliament's rules as well as article 82(c) of the constitution.
Section 44 of parliament's standing orders states that an MP assigned by the Speaker could preside over sittings in the absence of both the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
The current impasse was reached over the cancelation of sittings with reference primarily to section 205(b) of the rules, which state that the Deputy Speaker must preside over a sitting with the impeachment of the Speaker on the agenda.
At the first hearing of the MDP's case today, Justice Husnu Suood asked for the solution to the inability to proceed with the Speaker's impeachment due to the Deputy Speaker's absence.
In response, Counsel General Fathmath Filza said the solution in that circumstance was to revise parliament's standing orders.
"An amendment has to be brought to the regulations. We have already given that advice," Filza said.
But the MDP interprets the rules to mean that no other work could be done in parliament without concluding the impeachment motion against the Speaker.
Addressing the party's stance, Filza said the circumstance where no other could be done without concluding the impeachment would only arise after the motion is presented to the floor during a sitting of parliament.
"There is no obstacle yet to holding a normal sitting. In the absence of an obstacle, parliament has the power and the discretion to amend parliament's regulations," Filza said.
"What is the solution for the situation where parliament becomes deadlocked with the Speaker and Deputy Speaker as well not attending sittings?" Suood asked.
But Filza said parliament was not in such a state of deadlock and that sittings could be held.
