ATTORNEY-general Petros Clerides yesterday hit back at daily Politis for running a story alleging that, on his recommendation, the President had interceded on behalf of a man refusing to pay alimony to his ex-wife.
Clerides rebuked the daily for not presenting the facts accurately:
“I can only assume that the objective of the article was to create an issue out of nothing, and by extension, to slander the Attorney-general and the President.”
The woman had secured an arrest warrant for her ex-husband, when the latter consistently failed to pay maintenance fees for their three children. However, in June of this year, President Tassos Papadopoulos issued an order suspending the execution of the arrest order for three months. In September, just as the suspension was due to expire, it was renewed again, this time by House Speaker Demetris Christofias, as acting President of the Republic –Papadopoulos was abroad.
The distraught woman says she simply cannot afford to care for her children alone.
She claims the President has broken the law, for two reasons: first because an arrest order for not paying alimony is not a sentence, but rather a remedy; and second, because this is a civil, not criminal case.
The mother also maintains that an arrest order is not a sentence per se, but rather a threat of a sentence. Therefore, suspending an arrest order is not within the President’s powers.
It’s a legal point with arguments on both sides of the fence; but former Attorney-general Alecos Markides yesterday told the Mail that the President was well within his powers to suspend an arrest order on humanitarian grounds.
“When an arrest order is issued, it means you’re liable to go to jail. If that’s not a sentence –even if it hasn’t actually been executed – then what else could it be?” he mused.
Markides said that under his watch he had dealt with “several dozen” similar cases, and had indeed recommended to the President that persons facing imprisonment for not paying debts be pardoned.
“Listen, it depends on the specifics every time. You weigh the facts and make a judgment. In the vast majority of cases involving alimony, I recall that the persons awarded a reprieve eventually paid their dues. I wonder, would they have been able to pay while behind bars?”
However, the woman’s current husband yesterday claimed that not only had the President suspended the arrest order, but more crucially the payment of alimony.
“This is what vexes us the most,” he told the Mail. “We don’t want the guy to go to jail, absolutely not. But he needs to pay his alimony, as ordered by a court two years ago.
“And we’re not saying that the President or the House Speaker are biased or that they deliberately sidestepped the law. No, what we’re saying is that the Attorney-general committed a blunder.”
As is often the case in alimony disputes, there is more than meets the eye. The woman, who lives in Limassol, claims that the Presidential pardon issued was based on false evidence.
She says her ex husband is forcibly keeping their children with him for three or four days a week, so as to give the impression he is actually paying for the children’s welfare.
Apparently, the husband has secured a report from the Welfare Office confirming that he is in charge of the children’s nourishment, care and education. The mother counters that the ex-husband has deceived the authorities.
In his letter to Politis yesterday, Clerides conceded that he largely based his recommendation for a pardon on documentation from the Welfare Office.
But the woman’s present partner told the Mail yesterday that the welfare worker monitoring the case never said anything of the sort in her report.
“When we saw the article in Politis, we contacted the lady and she was very upset about it,” he said.
What’s more, the social worker’s report is confidential, and can only be requested as evidence inside a court of law, the source said.
“So how did they get hold of it, not to mention that it was incomplete anyway? There is something very wrong here.”
He said that they were planning to appeal to the Supreme Court against the pardon, which they feel was granted in breach of the law.
And the source hinted his wife’s ex was acting out of vindictiveness.
In addition, he said the ex was well connected with the police and with known politicians, so he could pull a lot of strings.
“I doubt it’s about the money. He makes a good living. I think that custody is on his mind, so he’s using all the means at his disposal to give us a hard time.
“The children visit their dad and stay over sometimes. That’s fine, they have to spend time with him. We understand that. But he has to pay his dues. Right now, we’re all chipping in to make ends meet, and he’s living comfortably in his house. Is that fair?”
??
??
??
??
