The Ministry of Health made announcements last night to deal with the pandemic in the country, with the leading measure being the use of the coronapass for "free" movement.
The President of the Pancyprian Bar Association, Christos Clerides, spoke on Radio Proto's First Broadcast, explaining why coronapass is unconstitutional.
He first referred to the laws of the Republic of Cyprus to explain the resulting infringements:
"According to the colonial law on decontamination, the Council of Ministers has the power to adopt regulations to deal with the situation."
"Under a law of 1962, the Council of Ministers has the power under law to delegate its powers to be exercised by a competent Minister."
"According to another law of the Republic of Cyprus of 1988, when we have such a delegation of powers from the Council of Ministers to a Minister to adopt regulations, these regulations must be submitted to the House of Representatives for a period and if not voted against, it is considered approved as law. ».
"However, the specific procedure was not followed in the case of the Minister's decrees", said Mr. Clerides.
He added that "it seems that the Minister has been authorized since last year on March 11, 2020 to issue decrees, but these decrees in the form of regulations never came into force of the later law of 1988 before the House of Representatives".
He clarified that according to the provisions of the constitution where a restriction is imposed on a constitutional right, as with the coronapass, the restriction must be established by law.
He further added that in such cases the law can be nothing more than a law of the House of Representatives, "if it is in the form of regulations they must be approved by the House of Representatives".
"This did not happen, so it means that we have restrictive and prohibitive measures to the extent that they affect the core of the basic right by decree of a Minister," he said.
He then stressed that there will be huge problems in implementing this law.
"Although it is valid until May 31, I believe that it came to leave us the coronapass. "Since the patron does not need to show anything to the owner, I find it very difficult for the police to ask every patron to show this pass."
"The police have no right to ask for the coronapass from anyone, except to enter the decree. "But even then new constitutional issues will be raised for violation," he clarified.
In closing, he stressed that arrest can only be made with an arrest warrant as well as a warrant unless it is committed spontaneously.
Source: Sigmalive