Clerides sends ‘unworkable’ corruption bill back to the House

By Martin Hellicar

PRESIDENT Clerides yesterday sent back to the House a controversial anti- corruption bill that was approved early last month after over a decade of on-and-off debate.

The bill provides for the periodic publication in the government gazette of the full assets of deputies, cabinet members, judges, top ministry officials and the owners and editors of all media outlets. The aim of the legislation is to prevent public figures abusing their position for personal financial gain.

But Clerides does not like the law as amended by deputies, and has exercised his constitutional right to send legislation back to the House for re-consideration.

In his explanatory letter to the House, he lists a whole series of reasons why the new law would be unworkable. Most all of the provisions pin-pointed as suspect by the President were approved during the final debate before the House plenum approved the bill on June 10.

This lends weight to speculation that these last-minute amendments to the law were approved with the aim of making it unworkable.

The anti-graft law had been on the table for more than ten years but successive plenums had been wary of approving it.

The recent resignation of Dinos Michaelides as Interior Minister in the face of persistent unlawful enrichment allegations heightened public mistrust of politicians and served as a catalyst for approval of the bill.

In his letter, Clerides said extending the remit of the law to cover judges and top media bosses made implementation “problematic”. Subjecting judges to such scrutiny would compromise their independence, the President noted.

Publicising the asset statements of public figures was “not in keeping with the spirit” of privacy laws, Clerides added.

And the inclusion of non-public figures in the list of accountable persons (media editors and publishers) was a violation of privacy laws, he added.

The House has, by law, 15 days in which to re-consider the bill and vote on it afresh. However, the last scheduled plenum session is on July 8, giving deputies very little time in which to think again.

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