AKEL’s concern about impunity

Statement by AKEL MP Aristos Damianou after the meeting of the Parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee

22 November 2021

Within the framework of the discussion of the Legal Service’s Budget, we had the opportunity to discuss with both the Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General a number of issues under their responsibilities and numerous issues that are of concern to Cypriot society.

We acknowledged the multi-dimensional activity at a legal level the Legal Service is developing, as well as the many pending issues, but also many challenges that must be addressed and won.

At the same time, we underlined our deep concern about citizen’s perception, which is now firmly entrenched, and to a certain extent also reflected in the political staff, that impunity continues to exist in our country.

We had a huge banking scandal and, unfortunately, the results have been poor or non-existent with regards punishing those responsible for this scandal. We also had various issues related to the Cooperative Bank scandal. We point out that the issues there too remain frozen.

We have the new mother of all scandals, namely the ‘golden’ passports scandal, and the picture that we have put together, at least for the time being, is that very few cases have been brought to justice. We note the important Attorney General’s reference that new cases are pending with regard the investment programme.

Of course, all of these cases of impunity against the background of and is in parallel with our political conclusion that, at least with regards the investment programme, there is a proven institutional complicity that reaches up to the highest echelons of the executive branch of government, up to and including the President of the Republic himself and members of his Ministerial Cabinet. This at the level of political accountability, but also the government ruling force’s refusal to accept their responsibilities says a lot about how they perceive good governance and the rule of law.