Filenews 11 April 2025
The Party for the Animals of Cyprus expresses its disagreement with the new legislative framework for animal abuse offences, which was voted by the House of Representatives on 10 April, proposing the abolition of the general scale and the codification of offences, linking any kind of violation with specific, strict and clearly defined penalties, depending on the specific weight, its severity and seriousness.
Although the amendment to the law introduces more dissuasive penalties, the Party believes that the general and wide range of penalties that is still in force does not ensure proportionality and does not satisfy the citizens' sense of justice. The Party for the Animals proposes the abolition of the general scale and the codification of offences, linking any kind of violation with specific, severe and clearly defined penalties, depending on its specific gravity, severity and seriousness.
As the president of the Party, Kyriakos Kyriakou, states in a written statement, the generality of the framework allows the courts to impose penalties that do not correspond to the seriousness of the acts. As a consequence of this, the court is allowed to impose a penalty for a serious offense of abuse, which can be considered a 'caress' towards the guilty offender, whose actions may even have resulted in the torturous death of one or more animals," he says, noting that this leads to disappointment of citizens and the absence of substantial deterrence.
