Online Supreme Court hearings, live on Twitter, Youtube

The Supreme Court of Maldives will be hearing cases online and broadcasting the trails live on Youtube and Twitter.

A guideline on the Supreme Court proceedings was formed and published in light of the particular health emergency in the Maldives. 

The guideline stated that if the service of the Supreme Court did not require an individual to attend the court, the services are to be conducted via email, text message, phone call, GEMS, or other electronic communication methods. 

Supreme Court trial proceedings of case reviews will be conducted via Microsoft Teams, Telephone, or other teleconference platforms.

Link, passwords, and usernames required to join the trial proceedings will be forwarded to the parties an hour before the proceedings are begun.

In order to conserve time, the court stated that only a party to the case, the appointed attorney will be allowed to speak at the trial if the overseeing justices have not decided otherwise in a situation where the exchange of documents has been completed beforehand.

Each attorney will be provided ten minutes to speak after which the attorneys will be allowed to speak based on the decisions of the Justices presiding.

The guideline also stated the procedure to submit a case, register a case, preliminary hearings, and exchange of documents between parties as well as signing documents through electronic means.

Procedure to release case reports, summons, and court orders for trials as well as other related activities to the trial were also stipulated in the guideline. 

Appeal periods for cases will be counted from June 1 onwards, and the days for which the government remained closed will not be counted for the appeal proceedings. Case submissions are to be sent to [email protected]. Complaints regarding any issues are also to be submitted to the court via email/