By Anthony O. Miller
AGRICULTURE Minister Costas Themistocleous yesterday turned up the heat in a dispute with MP Demetris Eliades that could end with the courts defining the limits of Parliament’s power to supervise the actions of the government.
The flap began when Themistocleous refused to give Eliades’ House Environment Committee a copy of a letter the minister wrote to the Council of Ministers.
Themistocleous, of the United Democrats, accused Eliades, an Edek deputy, of “politically suspect” behaviour for seeking to sue him for refusing to surrender the letter.
Eliades has charged Themistocleous with “contempt of Parliament” and “ignoring the law” by refusing to hand over the letter. On Tuesday, his committee requested the House plenum to ask Attorney-general Alecos Markides to sue Themistocleous and two of his top employees for defying his committee’s request.
Meanwhile, Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou yesterday urged the House not to rush into any action that would create a crisis in the Republic’s institutions, since the issue concerns not only Themistocleous, but all of government policy.
“Of course, the government will position itself when the plenum takes the relevant decisions,” Papapetrou said. But he added that he hoped the House will behave responsibly and “not rush to adopt positions which could create a serious institutional crisis”.
Themistocleous wrote the letter to the Council before its April 21 meeting, and in it urged the Council to grant Ayia Napa Marine Park (ANMP) a permit to import four more Bottlenose Dolphins. At the April 21 meeting, the Council did just that.
Eliades’ Committee opposed the Cabinet’s permit grant to ANMP, and demanded to see the minister’s letter to the Council recommending it.
Themistocleous claimed the letter was privileged and refused to give it up. He said that while the law requires his and the Council’s decisions to be made public, it does not require the thinking behind them to be.
Besides, he said yesterday: “The dolphinarium has shut down. … The essence of the issue is: the dolphinarium is closed. The interested party (owner Kikis Constantinou) has not taken advantage of the decision taken by the Cabinet in April 1999 (to let him import more dolphins). Therefore,” he said, “…in practice government policy has been implemented.”
Constantinou, however, told The Sunday Mail in July that the Marine Park is closed “for renovation” and that he did not know when it would.
All four of the dolphins there died between 1994 and 1998 due to what marine biologists have called abuse and neglect. One of two seals on show there also died in early September.
The surviving seal is now being fed under the supervision of the Department of Veterinary Services.
