Parliament committee to closely monitor political dismissals

The Parliament’s Judiciary Committee chair and MP for North Maafannu Imthiyaaz Fahmy has said that the committee will remain wary of unfair dismissals attributed to political criticism.

The MP’s statement comes after an employee of Hithadhoo Ports Limited (HPL) was dismissed for alleged criticism and defamatory statements made towards President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed.

A tweet sent out by the MP noted that the government has employed individuals who were political opponents during the last parliamentary elections. How such dismissals are dealt with by the Employment Tribunal will be closely monitored by the Judiciary Committee, said MP Imthiyaaz.

The employee of HPL that was dismissed was an assistant operations officer of HPL since 2014 and was dismissed on May 2. A letter of warning was previously issued to the employee reading that further defamatory statements on social media regarding the President and Speaker would be met with a dismissal from the post. 

The letter of dismissal sent at first also read the same, however, it was retracted and sent again. The part regarding the defamatory statements on social media was retracted in the later chit and read that the employee had violated the code of conduct.

Both President Solih and Speaker Nasheed have previously said that criticism on social media would not result in such circumstances. Repeated declarations by the top two government figures said that freedom of expression would be fully provided during an administration of MDP and criticized the former administration for such instances of violation.