After a mass suspension of lawyers earlier in the month, 35 lawyers, including a former Chief Justice, have stood up in their defence.

The 35 lawyers include; former Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz, former Judge at High Court Azmiralda Zahir, former Attorney General Dhiyana Saeed, former deputy AG Ahmed Mohamed, Gan constituency MP Fayyaz Ismail, Makunudhoo constituency MP Anara Naeem, as well as lawyers Maumoon and Shaheen Hameed.

54 lawyers, out of the 56 who had signed a petition calling to reform the judiciary on August 30, were suspended last week “for contempt of Court”. The other two, Ali Hussain and former Prosecutor General Ali Hussain, were already under suspension.

According to the Department of Judicial Administration (DJA), the said lawyers 'were in violation of the Judicature Act, lawyers’ pledge and Court regulation by submitting the unlawful document’.

Prominent lawyers, Hisaan Hussain, Mahfooz Saeed, Moosa Siraj, Anas Abdul Sattar, Ibrahim Riffath, Nazim Sattar, Hassan Latheef, Ali Zahir, Imthiyaz Fahmy and former attorney general Husnu Suood are some of the lawyers whose licenses that were suspended.

The opposition has condemned the DJA's decision, with former President Mohamed Nasheed calling on the international community to impose targeted sanction against Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, while former President Maumoon Abdula Gayoom noted that the large-scale suspension "clearly shows how desperate the authorities have become".

Furthermore, the international community has also criticized the mass suspension of lawyers, with the Delegation of the European Union to the Maldives highlighting that this "is not the right way to address issue of obstructing independence of the justice system".