Speaker of the Parliament, President of MDP and former President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, has said that the structure of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) will be changed in the current five-year term and its not getting late for the change.

Making changes is a campaign promise of the current President, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. The President has previously said that he would set the term for JSC as three years and protect the commission from political influence and keep judges off the commission.

However, the opposition coalition has criticized the current administration saying that political figures have been appointed to the JSC and accused the Speaker of the Parliament and President of MDP of influencing judges as the Chair of the JSC.

At the press conference held at the Parliament today, Speaker of the Parliament said that changing the composition of the JSC is a campaign promise of MDP and admits that the change has been delayed.

He said that it is not a forbidden question to ask if the Speaker of the Parliament and the President of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) needs to be on the JSC and the MDP manifesto has highlighted it as well.

Noting that the current work of the JSC is important, the former President said that there have been criticism of the judiciary in the past and those criticisms are fewer now and most judges proceed on their cases with integrity and honesty.

According to the Constitution, JSC needs to have ten members that consists of the Speaker of Parliament, a Supreme Court Judge aside from the Chief Justice, a High Court Judge, a judge from a lower court, President of the CSC, two MPs, Attorney General and a lawyer.