By a Staff Reporter
INTERIOR Minister Andreas Christou said yesterday the government had decided to annul a provision in the law that imposes fines on people who are late in registering their children’s births.
At present, the law states that people who are late in registering their children are fined £15 for the delay on top of the £1 for the birth certificate.
But speaking at a news conference yesterday, Christou said the move was a part of a Cabinet decision for measures to aid Turkish Cypriots living in the north, who were not able to register their children after the invasion in 1974.
“Because of the current legislation, our Turkish Cypriot compatriots are being forced to pay a fine of £15 to register their children,” Christou said.
“In the framework of measures to aid Turkish Cypriots, the Cabinet has decided to scrap the provision in question and to present the House of Representatives with an amended bill.”
Christou said Greek Cypriots never paid fines for the delay since documentation was sent to the Mukhtar directly from the clinic, but Turkish Cypriots had not been able to cross to register their children, and the law was effectively punishing them for something that was not their fault.
However, Christou said the money already paid by Turkish Cypriots could not be returned.
“The money cannot be returned, we can’t have a retrospective law,” he said.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
