Attorney-general cut out of wiretap decisions

There will now be no role for the attorney-general of the day in decisions for the authorities to access people’s private communications, according to MPs who spoke after Friday’s closed session of the House legal committee, which was attended by both Justice Minister Costas Fitiris and police chief Themistos Arnaoutis.

Instead, decisions will be taken by the commander of the Cyprus intelligence service, who will then inform a three-member committee within 72 hours of such a decision to monitor an individual’s private communications.

That committee will, according to committee chairman and Disy MP Nicos Tornaritis, be chaired by a high-ranking former judge, who has either served as the chief justice of a district court, of the supreme court, or of the constitutional court.

Its other two members, he said, will be “persons of recognised prestige”.

He also promised that MPs will “provide all the guarantees and tools which the law enforcement agencies need to deal with organised crime”, before saying that he hopes that the required 38 of Cyprus’ 56 sitting MPs will vote in favour of the plans.

The plans require 38 votes, rather than a simple majority, because they entail an amendment to Article 17 of the Republic of Cyprus’ constitution.

That article states that “every person has the right to respect for, and to the secrecy of, his correspondence and other communication if such other communication is made through means not prohibited by law”.

It adds that “there shall be no interference with the exercise of this right, except that in accordance with the law and only in cases of convicted and unconvicted prisoners and business correspondence and communication of bankrupts during the bankruptcy administration”.

The government’s planned changes will require that it invoke the “doctrine of necessity” to change the constitution’s Article 17.

The “doctrine of necessity” was borne out of the effective collapse of the bicommunal Republic of Cyprus as constitutionally envisioned in 1963 with the ejection of Turkish Cypriots from their constitutionally mandated positions within the state. It allows the Greek Cypriot community to unilaterally change the constitution in parliament.

Regarding the government’s new plans, MP Irene Charalambides, now of former auditor-general Odysseas Michaelides’ party, Alma, seemed to find herself in agreement, saying that “we cannot come and give additional powers, completely unchecked, to the attorney-general”.

She pointed out that there is already a three-member committee which oversees the activities undertaken by the Cyprus intelligence service, which is also currently chaired by a former judge, but said of the planned new committee that “personally, I would prefer that there be three former supreme court judges”.

However, she said, “they ended up, so as to have a compromise and an existing consensus, with effectively the existing committee”.

“I will accept it, because it already has the power to oversee the activities of the Cyprus intelligence service. There will be an agreement between the commander of the Cyprus intelligence service and the committee, which will have knowledge and will oversee the way in which the action will be taken,” she said.

She also stressed that “no change is occurring in the way the police obtain warrants” to search people’s private communications data, and that “the issue concerned the Cyprus intelligence service”.

Previous plans laid out by the government had foreseen that the attorney-general of the day would be given the authority to issue written approval to intercept private communications, though these have now fallen by the wayside.

It had also been heard at other committee sessions that anyone found to have conducted unlawful surveillance could face up to ten years in prison.

The committee will convene again to discuss the matter next Friday.