Why Hassan Sheikh Fired His Chief Justice: A UAE-Backed Plan
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has dismissed Supreme Court Chief Justice Bashe Yusuf Ahmed, days before the court was reportedly set to annul the 2024 constitutional amendments that underpin his entire political project. Sources in Puntland say the ruling was engineered by Puntland President Said Deni with substantial financial backing from the UAE, and that the dismissal has brought the plan to an abrupt end. The move follows the court’s August decision to annul the Galmudug elections, and raises fresh questions about judicial independence and foreign interference in Somalia’s constitutional crisis.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has dismissed Supreme Court Chief Justice Bashe Yusuf Ahmed. Appointed by then-President Farmajo in 2018 at the age of 36, Bashe was the youngest chief justice in Somalia’s history.
The dismissal follows months of tension between the court and the presidency. On 24 August 2026, the Supreme Court annulled the parliamentary and local council elections in Galmudug, ruling that they had not been conducted in accordance with the constitution and electoral law. The decision wiped out 63 of the 89 seats won by Hassan Sheikh’s Justice and Solidarity Party (JSP).
The real target: the constitutional amendments
According to local sources in Puntland, Bashe was preparing to announce a far bigger ruling on Saturday: the annulment of the constitutional amendments adopted by the federal parliament last year.
Those amendments, approved by both houses on 30 March 2024, rewrote the first four chapters of the provisional constitution. They replaced the clan-based indirect voting system with direct, one-person-one-vote elections, introduced a presidential system in which the president appoints and dismisses the prime minister, and capped the number of political parties at three. Puntland rejected the changes outright and declared it would not recognize federal institutions until the amendments were put to a national referendum.
The sources claim Puntland President Said Deni and the United Arab Emirates spent large sums to secure the annulment through the Supreme Court. Such a ruling would have dismantled Hassan Sheikh’s entire political project ahead of the 2026 election cycle and handed Deni a major victory.
With Bashe’s dismissal, the plan has collapsed. Deni is said to be deeply disappointed.
The legal basis of the dismissal remains contested. The president’s authority to remove members of the judiciary unilaterally has been questioned before; in 2015, a similar move was described by the then-chief justice as an “assault on judicial independence.”