TELEPHONE SURVEILLANCE - 38 VOTES ARE NOT SECURED TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION - POWER IS A THORN IN THE SIDE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL - ANOTHER SOLUTION IS SOUGHT - Filenews 13/3 by Michalis Chatzivasilis
They do not find the 38 votes required to amend the Constitution on the issue of interception of telephone conversations.
After more than two hours of discussion, they did not reach an extraordinary session of the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs today, before which three critical bills concerning phone tapping for organized crime and terrorism are located. A thorn in the side is the amendment of the Constitution, so that the Attorney General is given the power to authorize in writing the KYP to intercept telephone conversations only for the purposes of security of the Republic and now they are looking for other solutions.
AKEL, through MP Aristos Damianos, clarified that it will not consent to the voting of this provision if the amendment concerning the power of the Attorney General remains. He stated, however, that they would accept another amendment so that the approval would be given by a judge or a Commission.
Following this clear position and in the absence of the necessary condition for the approval of the amendment of the Constitution by 2/3 of the MPs, the session with the article-by-article discussion was adjourned. At this time, the MPs in the presence of the Attorney General, the Minister of Justice and the Governor of the KYP, are meeting behind closed doors in order to find the formula and bring the bills before the Plenary.
During the discussion on the principle of the bills, everyone agreed that the weapons should be given to the authorities so that they can fight organized crime and protect the security of the Republic, however, the Pancyprian Bar Association, through its president Michalis Vorkas, dissociated itself from the provision regarding the delegation of powers to the Attorney General to give written approval to the Governor of the KYP for surveillance on issues related to security of the state. In Europe, he said, this is done either by a judge or by a Commission, while reference was made to decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union on this matter.
Attorney General Giorgos Savvidis, in his statement, stated that we may be the only country that does not have this tool to combat crime and the security of the state and stressed that the current conditions with the concerns of the people especially about crime and the political situation we are living in, the necessity of importing this superweapon, make it imperative to pass the bills. He addressed a strong cry of appeal for the bills to be passed.
For his part, the Minister of Justice and Public Order, Kostas Fytiris, said that if the bills are passed, they will give incredibly powerful weapons for public safety. The bills should be examined under the lens of state security and organized crime in order to be one step ahead, especially for the crime that plagues all of Europe.
The commander of the KYP, Tasos Tzionis, stressed that it is absolutely necessary to pass the bills in order to fight crime and ensure the security of the state, without prohibitive conditions that will make our work difficult. Our hands need to be untied in order to move in time, confidentially, without leaks.
