Seeking a ruling on its legality, the president on Tuesday referred to the Supreme Court a bill passed by parliament earlier this month giving the education minister the power to decide which historical or other events would be commemorated in public schools.
The bill, tabled by ruling Disy and passed by parliament amid acrimony, was designed to effectively reverse an earlier decision by the legislature to commemorate the 1950 Enosis (union with Greece) plebiscite. The February decision prompted Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci to abandon the reunification talks and declare that he would not return unless it was corrected.
The government said on Monday that it was referring the bill to the Supreme Court following the advice of the attorney-general who told the president in private that it probably clashed with the provision on the separation of powers in the constitution.
The AG had been asked by the House speaker to give his opinion before the vote but he said he could not because he was not the parliament’s legal adviser.
The bill was approved on April 7 with the votes of Disy and Akel amid tensions and angry exchanges that caused the interruption of the session.
Akel said the president’s decision to refer the law to the Supreme Court raised reasonable questions.
“If the president had doubts about the constitutionality of Disy’s proposal why didn’t he consult with his party all this time, considering the intense discussions?” spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said.
Stefanou said Anastasiades was not obliged to refer the law – it is the president’s right and not an obligation to send bills to the Supreme Court even if the AG says they were unconstitutional.
“Consequently, it was a highly political decision with obvious aims,” he said. “He will have to deal with the potential side effects. We did whatever we could.”
Disy, which claimed that its proposal had nothing to do with the talks, said on Tuesday it would wait for the Supreme Court’s verdict.
“… we noted and we repeat the appreciation for Akel’s positive stance since approval of the law also helped the climate of the negotiations,” Disy said.
The negotiations whose fate was uncertain on Tuesday amid chatter that the two leaders had reached an impasse and a negotiated partition could be the only option.
According to Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris, which quoted government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides, the president did not talk about a dead end nor a partition as a solution.
He talked about difficulties on the negotiating table, especially since Geneva, and mainly because of Turkey’s insistence on four Freedoms and on some other issues which in a way is a shift in position.
