A number of lawyers have taken to social media to state that the Home Ministry’s amendment to protocol regarding the public use of the national flag, has no legal authority.

The change, published in the government gazette states that the flag can only be hoisted in public with the written permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Officers cited the amendment when they had forced the Progressive Party of Maldives’ (PPM) faction loyal to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

Prominent lawyer Maumoon Hameed, who is also nephew to both Gayoom and President Abdulla Yameen, in a tweet on Friday night, cited articles 64 and 271 of the constitution as reasons that the procedural amendment is not law.

“No employee of the State shall impose any orders on a person except under authority of a law. Everyone has the right not to obey an unlawful order” the articles he referred to state ‘any regulations requiring compliance from citizens must only be enacted pursuant to authority from the parliament’.

Hisaan Hussein, Managing Partner at Hisaan, Riffath and Co., said that ministerial procedures do not possess the capacity to outlaw actions.

MP Ali Hussein, the lawmaker representing the Kendhoo constituency, also said that the regulations on public use of the national flag has been ‘void since its conception’, adding that a procedure without a law to give it legal authority is baseless.

 “The reason for this is to assert on how and where to use the flag, in a way to protect the Maldivian flag’s honour and dignity” said the Home Ministry, assuring that it does not wish to hinder the use of the flag to commemorate occasions significant to the nation.