Futuristic premises for new Supreme Court

THE Supreme Court has moved to new premises, a stone’s throw from the old building in Nicosia.

The architect in charge of the project, Androulla Floridou, yesterday told the Cyprus Mail the change was needed “as the old building had outdated facilities. We needed a more modern and larger building, due to the court’s increased needs.”

The new building, featuring 13 courtrooms, cost £8 million and took three years to build.
Floridou said that when work initially started, “we found the remains of a mediaeval Catholic monastery on the site. It has been excavated and is still on site for visitors to look at.”

On Wednesday, the court’s president Christos Artemides and registrar Savvas Raspopoulos, gave members of the media a tour of the new building, the purpose of which was to give the general public views of the building’s interior.

Artemides said other European countries “would be jealous of the administration of justice in Cyprus.”

The new building is approximately 8,000 square metres in size, over two levels, and is connected via a passageway to the listed Poulias house, where some personnel of the Supreme Court have their offices.

The unveiling of the new court has been undertaken by the Justice Ministry, with an official inauguration ceremony due to take place later this autumn. The ceremony will be attended by President Tassos Papadopoulos as well as guests from other nations’ supreme courts. The President of the European Court Of Human Rights is also expected to attend.

The court opened for business on Monday.

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.