The Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen announced its rejection of “unilateral” decisions issued recently by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, saying that they undermine the Riyadh Agreement.
A presidential decree released on Friday had appointed a new attorney general and Shura Council head.
Former prime minister Ahmed Ubaid bin Dagher was appointed as the head of the Shura Council and Ahmed Al-Mosai as attorney general.
Each of Abdullah Muhammad Abu Al-Ghaith and Taha Abdullah Jaafar Aman were appointed as deputy heads of the Shura Council.
The appointments came around a month after a new government was formed under the Riyadh Agreement.
Under Saudi sponsorship, the agreement was signed by the former government and the STC.
Hadi’s decision to have a change of leadership at the Shura Council comes as an apparent effort to rebuild Yemeni institutions whose performance was disrupted by the war waged by Iran-backed Houthi militias.
Al-Mosai, the new attorney general, held the post of deputy minister of interior and has worked on sensitive issues such as the war on terror and assassinations.
It is worth noting that Muti' Ahmad Dammaj was assigned the post of Secretary-General to the premiership.
“These decisions (appointments) are a dangerous escalation and a clear and unacceptable departure from what has been agreed upon, and undermining the Riyadh agreement,” the STC spokesman, Ali Al Kathiri, said today, on Twitter.
More so, the Club of Southern Judges criticized Friday's decrees.
The club said the appointment of the new attorney general violated the Yemeni constitution and judicial authority law.
There should have been a proposal by the president of the supreme judicial council for the appointment of the attorney general as the judicial authority law and its procedural amendments state, the club said.
Al-Mosai did not come from the judicial authority but from the ministry of interior, it stressed.