Supreme Court cases seek to halt referendum on combined elections

Two cases have been filed at the Supreme Court seeking to annul the constitutional amendment to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on the same day and to stop the proposed referendum.

Parliament passed the amendment to shorten the term of the current parliament to 1 December 2028 and to combine presidential and parliamentary elections.

Under the Constitution, such an amendment must be approved by a majority of voters in a public referendum.

President Mohamed Muizzu issued a decree on 16 February to hold the referendum on 4 April, alongside the local council elections.

The two cases filed on Tuesday seek to halt the referendum and declare the amendment unconstitutional.

One petition was filed by former Kendhoo Member of Parliament Ali Hussain.

In his filing, Hussain argued that the constitutional deadline for ratification of the amendment had expired.

He stated that under the Constitution, the president has 15 days to ratify a bill. If the bill is not ratified within that period and parliament is not informed of a decision to withhold ratification, the bill is deemed to have been ratified.

According to the petition, the amendment was passed by parliament and sent to the president on 11 February, but no referendum was called within the required period.

The petition seeks a declaration that the deadlines for holding a referendum have been exceeded and that proceeding with a referendum would be contrary to Article 264 of the Constitution.

“The bill has not been passed and parliament has not been informed. Therefore, the bill is invalid as it has violated the limits of Article 264(a) of the Constitution,” the petition states.

The second petition was filed by lawyers Ibrahim Shiyam and Aik Ahmed Esa.

The petition challenges the wording of the referendum question, arguing that it does not comply with constitutional requirements.

It states that the Constitution requires voters to approve or reject the amendment itself.

However, the question proposed for the referendum asks whether the president should approve the amendment to hold presidential and parliamentary elections together and define the method of calculating the parliamentary term.

The petition also argues that the amendment includes matters beyond the scope of Article 262 of the Constitution.

“The question of whether to approve the entire bill is designed to obscure the change to the Constitution. Therefore, this question is not designed within the procedures required by Article 262(b) of the Constitution,” the petition states.

The petition requests the court to rule that the referendum should not proceed.