THE SUPREME Court will hear the appeals of three public servants suspended over the Mari naval base blast in the coming weeks.
Foreign Ministry permanent secretary Nicholas Emiliou will have his appeal heard next Wednesday by the top court, said his lawyer Andreas Angelides yesterday.
An investigation was launched against four foreign ministry officials last week over “possible disciplinary offences”, relating to their alleged involvement in fabricating an internal memo concerning last month’s naval base blast. The memo referred to a meeting between the ministers of defence and foreign affairs on February 7 to discuss the munitions cargo stored at the Evangelos Florakis naval base.
The officials include Emiliou, first secretary of the permanent secretary’s office Giorgos Yiangou, head of the department of multilateral affairs and international organisations Michalis Stavrinos and attaché Giulia Sykopetrites.
The four were recently suspended after Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis applied to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for their suspension pending the conclusion of the state prosecutor’s investigation.
Emiliou has denied the allegations and on Tuesday sought an interim order overturning his suspension. The diplomat’s lawyer Angelides told the Cyprus News Agency yesterday that the top court decided to give the other side, in this case the PSC, a chance to give its views. As such the case has been pencilled in for next Wednesday.
“I explained to the court that (the suspension) was manifestly unlawful because the minister was not the competent authority, which for permanent secretaries is the cabinet itself. Therefore, it was cabinet that should have requested the suspension and not the minister,” said Angelides.
“This is what is provided by the law on the Public Service, and the foreign service and the regulations and even under the budget which speaks of 11 permanent secretaries,” he added.
He argued that the law allows the Commission “by way of exception only” to immediately suspend an employee without hearing them first, which is the norm, only in exceptional circumstances and if it is in the public interest.
“I explained that the law says it’s not enough to claim public interest and exceptional circumstances, one has to be more specific, based on a 1993 decision when then president Glafcos Clerides fired the entire boards of semi-government organisations,” said Angelides.
While the Commission does not usually comment on its decisions, PSC head Pavlos Papageorgiou said yesterday he felt the need to defend it due to allegations in the press that they did not fully investigate before taking a decision.
“We made a full evaluation, with the law giving us the right to suspend someone immediately in exceptional circumstances and the Commission by majority decided that this was an exceptional circumstance,” said Papageorgiou.
He confirmed that there have been many cases where an immediate suspension has been given due to exceptional circumstances.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will also examine the appeal of suspended fire chief Andreas Nicolaou on October 5. Nicolaou appealed to the country’s top court last Thursday, claiming the decision to suspend him on July 27 following the launch of criminal and disciplinary investigations against him was “void, illegal and lacking any legal effect”.
Nicolaou is also being represented by law firm Andreas Angelides and Michalis Vorkas.
Three other senior fire service officials were suspended with Nicolaou on July 27 following the naval base blast, including deputy fire chief Pambos Charalambous.
The deputy chief’s own appeal to the Supreme Court will be examined on September 9.
