High Court overturns lower court verdict on "Haveeru" ownership

High Court of Maldives on Thursday overturned Civil Court ruling regarding the ownership dispute of renowned 'Haveeru' newspaper.

The Civil Court was ordered to conduct a re-trial of the case by the High Court.

An ownership dispute case was filed at the Civil Court by Ibrahim Rashed Moosa, Farooq Hassan and Mohamed Naeem in 2016. The newspaper was shut down following a temporary order issued by the court to order to include Farooq, Rasheed and Naeem in all operations of the newspaper.

In the lawsuit, the three individuals demanded income, shares and management rights of the news agency.

However, then Civil Court judge, Mohamed Haleem issued a verdict that included several components which were not requested by the plaintiffs. He ordered that staff working in Haveeru newspaper was banned from working at another news agency for two years, and ordered the state to take action against any employee that moves to another news agency. The Court also ordered that the majority share holders of "Haveeru News Agency" can utilize Haveeru website and archive in any way they please.

Following the order, Chairman of Haveeru, Dr. Mhamed Zahr Hussain then appealed the case at the High Court.

The High Court on Thursday overturned the Civil Court's verdict in an appellant hearing, and ordered a re-trial, citing that the original verdict issued by the Civil Court had additional components that were not sought in the original lawsuit.

The High Court verdict noted that the Civil Court verdict included components that were unrelated to the claims sought by the plaintiff, and no parties involved in the case were given the chance to speak on it. The orders regarding the employees of the news agency and its archive were not related to the requests made by the plaintiffs, read the order.

Thursday's verdict was issued with the unanimous agreement of all judges on the bench. Judge Abdul Rauf Ibrahim, Judge Ali Sameer and Judge Mohamed Faisal presided over the bench.

The Civil Court's order to ban employees of the news agency from working at any other media outlet was appealed at the High Court by the State. The employees themselves appealed the Civil Court's verdict at the High Court. Both cases were tried, although a verdict was not reached.