Supreme Court lifts injunction on DISY rebels

THE Supreme Court yesterday suspended a district court injunction banning a group of DISY dissidents from using the word ‘rally’ in the name of their party.
The dissidents have called their movement Rally for Europe, drawing from the heritage of DISY, the Democratic Rally.

On Wednesday, a Nicosia district court issued an injunction banning the group from using the word ‘rally’ and set June 1 as the date of the hearing.
However, the rebels filed a Certiorari petition with the Supreme Court as no other court could overturn the decision, which, according to lawyer Eleni Vrahimi, was indirectly a final decision considering that the candidacies for the European elections were submitted yesterday.

“Our position was that no other court could overturn the injunction and we could not wait for the hearing on June 1,” Vrahimi told the Cyprus Mail.
The rebels argued that the injunction was issued without them being heard and that DISY had waited for the last day to file for the injunction despite knowing since the end of April that they were planning to use Rally for Europe as their name.

Vrahimi said that in accepting the DISY position, the district court contravened natural justice, adding that the injunction would effectively be irreversible.
The Supreme Court heard the rebels’ case and intervened by suspending the injunction and giving them the go-ahead to use the name.

The two sides now have five days each to submit their positions.
On June 1, the district court will convene to set a date for the first hearing.
The European elections are set for June 13, which means that there is time for the court case to be heard, according to one legal expert.

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.