On 6 June 2022 the Supreme Court issued two decisions on petitions of the President of the Republic, under Article 140 of the Constitution, as to whether two laws passed by the Parliament are in conflict or inconsistent with a specific provision of the Constitution.
Petition No. 8/21 concerned a request for an opinion on the constitutionality of the Law on Social Insurance (Amendment) (No. 6) Law of 2021, which was passed by the Parliament on 23 April 2021, following the submission of a bill by the MPs Mr. George Lillikas on behalf of the Civic Alliance, Mr. Kostis Efstathiou on behalf of the Social Democrats Movement, Mr. George Perdikis on behalf of the Ecologists-Civic Co-operation Movement and Mr. Michael Yiorgalla on behalf of Solidarity. The purpose of this legislative proposal was to explore the term 'employee' for social security purposes in order to explicitly include employment under a contract for the purchase of services or any other relevant contract, irrespective of the characterisation of such a contract, provided that it is characterised by an employer-employee relationship, so that employees have all the rights and benefits, including the payment of their social security contributions as employees and not as self-employed persons.
Petition No. 10/21 concerned a requested opinion on the constitutionality of the Act entitled "The Transfer and Mortgage of Immovable Property (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 2021, which was passed by Parliament on 8 July 2021, following the submission of a bill by MPs Mr. Stefanos Stefanou, Aristo Damianou and Christos Christofides on behalf of the parliamentary group AKEL-Left-New Forces, Christiana Erotokritou and Chrysi Pantelides on behalf of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Party, Alekos Tryfonidis on behalf of the Democratic Party and Stavros Papadouris on behalf of the Movement of Ecologists-Civic Co-operation. The purpose of this law proposal was to suspend the procedure for the sale of mortgaged properties until 31 October 2021, due to the economic and social consequences of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on the decisions issued, the two laws passed do not contradict the Articles of the Constitution which had been invoked as unconstitutional. In addition, it was ruled that the first Law under consideration is not contrary to or inconsistent with a specific European Directive and therefore both Laws will be adopted by publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic.
(Text as sent by the House of Representatives)
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