President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has today ratified the third amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act (Law No. 12/2016). The legislation had been earlier passed by the People’s Majlis at the 33rd sitting of its second session this year, on September 6 2020.

The main purpose of the legislation is to address obstacles that prevent the effective enforcement of the Criminal Procedure Act. It does this by adding additional enforcement mechanisms to the main Act.

Further, under the amendment, important new provisions are added to the Act. This includes delineating rape and sexual abuse of children as serious criminal offences.

Upon ratification the amendments have been published in the Government Gazette