01 May 2025
In September 2021, I submitted a case to the Civil Court of the Maldives, against 3 relevant institutions of the Government of Maldives, to stop the K. Gulhifalhu Port Development project that would cause irreversible damage to the environment. In February 2023, the Government of Maldives started the second phase of the reclamation works of the project while the case was ongoing at the Civil Court. In response to this, an emergency interim injunction request was submitted to the Civil Court to temporarily stop the works until a decision is reached in the main case. However, the Civil Court ruled there was no cause to issue such an injunction. When I appealed this decision at the High Court of the Maldives, the Court ruled in my favour stating the situation existed to issue such an order. This decision was appealed at the Maldives Supreme Court by the Maldivian State. On 14 February 2024, in its decision number 2024/SC-A/08, the Supreme Court annulled the High Court’s decision. A brief analysis of the concerns about the Supreme Court’s decision was published in Miveshi on 16 May 2024.
It is my belief that in its annulment of the High Court’s decision in favour of the State, the Supreme Court made fundamental errors constituting gross injustice. Therefore, using the existing procedural rules of the Supreme Court, on 11 August 2024 I submitted a request to review the decision by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court responded to this review request on 6 October 2024. In its response, the Court said that following a meeting of the Supreme Court’s General Council number SFMJ/2024/22 held on 24 September 2024, the Court found no grounds to review its decision. Additional information obtained about the meeting has been published under the 20 December 2024 update on the Miveshi case timeline. Given these developments, the avenues for seeking a remedy in this case in the Maldives were closed.
However, I believe that the manner in which the Supreme Court reached its decision in case number 2024/SC-A/08 constitutes serious lapses to uphold national laws and the rules of justice. Therefore, for the sake of public information, I decided to publish the review request submitted to the Supreme Court on 11 August 2024 in Miveshi.
An English translation of the information in the review request (omitting certain personal information) is available here (PDF).
Humaida Abdul Ghafoor
Male’, Maldives
01 May 2025