A VERY public row over the constitutional boundaries between the powers of the Presidency and the House of Representatives erupted yesterday, with all parliamentary parties except for AKEL criticising President Demetris Christofias’ complaint on Tuesday that deputies are encroaching on his executive powers regarding the state budget.
Christofias said during a speech on Tuesday evening: “We have a House of Representatives which, with all due respect to my former parliamentary colleagues, is gradually turning into the governing power, cutting revenues and adding to spending using various pretexts.”
House President and leader of government partner DIKO Marios Garoyian said yesterday that although the President has every right to voice a complaint about certain positions adopted by parliament, “under no circumstances can this lead to the conclusion that the House of Representatives has gone off the rails or stepped outside its clearly-defined institutional framework.”
Article 80 of the island’s Constitution states very simply: “1. The right to introduce Bills belongs to the Representatives and to the Ministers; 2. No Bill relating to an increase in budgetary expenditure can be introduced by any Representative.”
In a landmark decision last December, regarding the government’s exclusion of restaurants from a bill aimed at helping the tourism sector by cutting VAT from 8.0 per cent to 5.0 per cent, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the House of Representatives has the right to reduce state income over the government’s wishes, in this case by also applying the measure to restaurants.
Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said yesterday that Christofias had this in mind when he made his comment on Tuesday, as well as the House’s more recent decision to increase state spending by extending refugee status – and the various benefits and entitlements it carries – to children of female as well as male refugees.
The official DIKO statement referred to Christofias’ statement as “excessive”, adding that “such exaggeration is the result of a particular conception of how Parliament operates”.
DISY Deputy President Averoff Neophytou said that a European Union country “cannot operate like AKEL’s Central Committee (CC), where the Bureau decides and then the CC endorses and applauds the decision.”
A statement by the Greens said that the party had never agreed to simply act as “the government’s puppet”.
Stefanou said that Christofias “respects the House of Representatives and expects the parties to show the Government the same respect. There are institutionalised principles, one basic principle being the differentiation of powers”.
While welcoming co-operation between the executive and parliament in facing up to the country’s current problems, “what the President said is that everyone should remain within the framework of his own authority and powers”, Stefanou added.
