Filenews 22 January 2022 - by Eleftheria Paizanou
An end to the phenomena of abuse by foreigners who have naturalized Cypriots and tried to change their name to hide their real identity, attempts to put a bill that was submitted to the Plenary of the Parliament. The bill amends the Civil Registry Act in order to give the director of the Civil Registry and Migration Department the ability to require naturalized persons applying for a change of name or surname to change the name in their country of origin.
The aim of the bill is to eliminate any phenomena of abuse or misleading of the authorities, related to the identity or identification of these persons.
As mentioned, the amendment of the law was deemed necessary, as there were phenomena of abuse by naturalized persons who applied for a change of name or surname, in order to hide their true identity, with the ultimate goal of abusing the procedures and misleading the authorities. In fact, the bill was pushed forward mainly for corrective reasons. It is recalled that the Audit Office, in its report on the Cyprus Investment Programme, had found a large number of applications from foreigners naturalized as Cypriots, through which they demanded a change of their name. This is a practice that has been applied since 2016, following an opinion of the Attorney General, according to which, when someone received Cypriot citizenship, he automatically received the same rights as Cypriots. In May 2020, instructions were given by the Minister of Interior and this phenomenon was terminated.
