The People's Majlis in Malé on Tuesday, 13 October, accepted a bill amending the Criminal Procedure Act that would give the state more grounds to withhold evidence from people accused of crimes, and sent it to the Judiciary Committee for review.
All 45 members who took part in the vote backed the bill, and no member voted against it. The bill was submitted in August by Mohamed Mamdhooh, the People's National Congress member for Funadhoo. Its stated purpose is to review the rules on disclosing evidence and to bring the law in line with a separate bill on recovering the proceeds of crime.
Under the current law, the state does not have to disclose reports and documents prepared by a prosecutor or agent solely for internal use, or statements a witness or potential witness gives to a government employee or prosecutor. The bill adds information that would identify a person who carried out a covert operation or a secret witness, and any evidence or information that another law says need not be disclosed to the accused.
The bill also widens the situations in which the state can apply to keep evidence secret. These include cases where operational details of a criminal investigation could be exposed, where the personal information, trade secrets or interests of a third party could be harmed, and where disclosure could help bring about another crime or amount to contempt of court. If the reason for withholding evidence ends after a trial has begun, the state must disclose it to the accused as soon as possible.
The bill makes no major changes to when an accused person can seek a protective order for evidence. The current law allows this in cases of physical harm, significant economic loss, coercion, or where evidence could be compromised, damaged or destroyed; the bill proposes removing economic loss and coercion from that list. It also repeals Sections 192 to 197 of the Criminal Procedure Act, the chapter on confiscating the proceeds of crime, as a dedicated proceeds-of-crime law is being drafted in Parliament.
During the debate, opposition members said the bill had been designed by the government to target and frame political rivals. Government-aligned members denied this, saying the changes were not meant to influence cases now before the courts but to strengthen the legal system. The bill is not yet law and still has to clear committee review before it can be put to a final vote.