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- Русский
Nicosia 20 June 2023
Your Excellency Mr President of the Republic of Cyprus,
Your Honour Mr Attorney General,
Your Honour, Mr President of the Supreme Court,
Your Honour, Mr Deputy Attorney General,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The creation of the Academy of the Legal Service is an excellent initiative that is part of the broader efforts to modernize the service with the ultimate goal of upgrading the level of fulfillment of its duties and responsibilities.
The work produced by the Legal Service is of critical importance, recognising the major challenges it faces due to the complexity and volume of its work, bearing in mind also that its officials are in direct contact on a daily basis with the three constituent powers of the State - the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
Against this background, the qualitative upgrading of the legal knowledge and culture of its officials, and not only through training and lifelong learning, is a prerequisite for achieving its objectives and makes a decisive contribution to its further development and strengthening.
In this light, both the Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General are to be warmly congratulated for the innovative initiative of establishing the Academy. I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the excellent and important cooperation between the House of Representatives and the Legal Service to date, particularly with regard to legislative drafting and legislative control, as well as the overall work of the Service's officials in general at the sessions of the Parliamentary Committees during the examination of bills.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Equally timely and important is the theme of today's inaugural conference of the Academy of the Legal Service on the concept of public interest in the Cypriot legal order and beyond, as it is a subject that is frequently discussed both at the legal and jurisprudential level and in public debate.
The concept of public interest assumes particular importance and various implications in relation to its invocation in the exercise of public authority, since, although it is a legally functional concept which is concretised by legal rules, it is often identified with the direct interests of the whole of society organised in a State.
In reality, however, these are simply two sides of the same coin.
In its legal dimension, as Professor Dagtoglou very aptly put it, the public interest corresponds to "what the constitutionally defined institutions define in the exercise of their function, where these institutions are primarily the constitutional legislator, the common legislator and the acting administration".
The concept of public interest is of course not alien to the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, to which it responds both by explicit wording and by the defining purposes with which it is equated, public safety, public order, public health, public utility, transparency in public life, etc.k
Consequently, if the constituted organs of the State, in the exercise of their power, define the public interest by a rule of law, it is subject to judicial review of its legality in the context of the existence of a sound rule of law.
Nevertheless, the invocation of the public interest - whether by the legislature or by the executive - can be neither arbitrary nor abusive, as it is subject to and in accordance with the principles of proportionality, good governance and well-balanced decision-making, which are inherent in and permeate our Constitution.
It is certainly noted that, in the Cypriot legal order, an exception is the judicial unaccountability of the Attorney General in the exercise of criminal prosecutions, who, in accordance with the constitutional imperative, remains the absolute spokesman for the public interest within the framework of his powers.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In addition to its legal dimension, which will be discussed in greater detail by the distinguished guests of this conference, the public interest is not only concerned with the constitutional, legislative or regulatory provisions to which it responds, but also with the general consideration of what is in the best interests of the good that must permeate the exercise of any constitutional power within a modern State.
Thus conceived of as 'the reason for the common good', that is to say, the common component of the interests of the collective of citizens, the public interest can only express the well-intentioned interests of society as a whole and of the people themselves, whom it is always unreservedly legitimised to serve.
With these thoughts, I wish everyone a productive discussion with the certainty that today's conference will be the starting point for the future work of the Legal Service Academy.
(Text as sent from the House of Representatives)
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