The curtailment of any human rights should be approved by Parliament

Statement by Giorgos Loukaides, Parliamentary Representative of AKEL, after the meeting of the Parliamentary Health Affairs Committee

3 February 2022

I want to express my regret because key issues which we thought were agreed upon are not reflected in the revised text of the law on dangerous infectious diseases that has been submitted before us.  I am referring to issues that have to do with the very heart of this particular bill.  That is, the conditions under which there can be any curtailment of human rights, the need for the curtailment of human rights to be approved by Parliament and the need for the continued curtailment of human rights also to be approved by Parliament within a regular timeframe.

Asked by a journalist whether he has proposed any mechanisms to resolve these issues, i.e. for example, to renew the approval of Parliament every three months, G. Loukaides, replied in the affirmative and said that he referred again to the Constitution.  As he underlined, even in the most extreme case where a state of emergency must be declared in the event of war, in this case there need to be for a prior decision of Parliament in order to safeguard human rights.  This decision must be renewed every three months.  And at the same time, the Constitution clearly provides which human rights can be restricted even in the event of war.

Unfortunately, all these are not safeguarded in the government bill, even though the Minister agreed to include them. We expect that they will eventually be included, as requested by the Parliamentary Health Affairs Committee, and that this very important issue will soon have a positive outcome.