Final the reform of the top tier of the judiciary and the amendment to the constitution for reform will be in the plenary on Thursday 30 June, and this is a consensus of all sides, Nikos Tornaritis, chairman of the parliamentary legal committee, said on Monday.
He said that there was a serious and productive discussion in the committee today, thoughts and amendments were submitted "and in a good and consensual atmosphere we are moving forward."
He said that next Wednesday the committee will definitively see the various views, in the presence of the Attorney General and, online, the Minister of Justice, as she has contracted coronavirus.
"From then on, I will say that we are on the right track and I hope to continue with the same determination," Tornaritis said, adding that regardless of elections and disputes, society and citizens demand reforms and a rule of law of which they will be proud.
In response to a question, he said that the number of amendments tabled is not large and that there are also good proposals from the DIKO side "and we look at them with understanding and respect."
He added that on June 30 each of us will assume our responsibilities towards our office and towards society.
Aristos Damianou of AKEL said that all these years that the reform of the judiciary has been discussed in parliament or in offices and elsewhere, AKEL has been saying that it recognises the real need for reform "let alone when the Supreme Court itself says that the justice system is in collapse". He said that unfortunately the proposed reform is not comprehensive.
"It should have started from the first instance courts and reached the Supreme Court and we started backwards," he said. Damianu said that over the years we have enriched government bills with amendments and improvements and now we are at the point of amendments. He said that on the substance his party will take a position in the plenary next Thursday, weighing all the facts.
DIKO's Panicos Leonidou said that with the proposed reform "we believe that not all the problems of the judiciary are solved, on the contrary there remain several issues which we have the room to improve through the rest of the discussion we started today with the aim of concluding as quickly as possible."
He said his party has formulated four major proposals which include the better functioning of the trial courts, the establishment of a small claims resolution court, the introduction and strengthening of the institution of the ombudsman, online hearings and ad hoc appointments for a fixed term of retired judges and lawyers for certain types of cases.
Leonidou said that the time has come to extend the institution for an administrative court and for administrative disputes, with sanctioning jurisdiction in other matters such as disputes over benefits, EEO and social security. She said a proposal was also tabled for a debate on the non-compliance of administrative bodies with administrative decisions. He said, finally, that the party's organs would meet to finally decide how to position itself while awaiting the views of the government.
Source: CNA
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