A definitive shipwreck on the issue of the interception of telephone conversations. Despite the enormous efforts made and the proposals submitted, it was not possible to find the 38 votes needed to amend the Constitution and the issue is referred to the new Parliament.
Yesterday, in the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs, while it was expected to become clear which of the three proposals on the table would be forwarded to the Plenary, in the end the common component was not found, but it was agreed that the issue would remain in the Committee with the new Parliament. A "thorn" was from the beginning and remained until the end, the involvement of the Commander of the KYP in the start of surveillance and then the briefing of either the Three-Member Committee or another Authority. At yesterday's session, in the presence of the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General, the Minister of Justice and the Governor of the KYP, the proposal of the lawyers was submitted to the Committee, which, as "F" wrote, concerns the establishment of an Independent Authority according to the model of AADIPA, which will approve requests of the Governor of the KYP to start phone surveillance.
However, this proposal had no luck either, since it was provided that the approval by this Authority would be given within 72 hours after the monitoring would begin. The involvement of the Governor of the KYP in surveillance is a red flag for the MPs who react and do not accept this regulation. The amendment tabled by MP Nikos Tornaritis, on behalf of DISY, to abolish the provision to allow the lifting of telecommunications secrecy by bypassing a Judge was not accepted either. The same fate befell the proposal that initially seemed to gather some majority, even a marginal one, for the Three-Member Committee to approve the surveillance of the KYP.
The failure to find a solution to the issue of changing the Constitution was announced in a post by AKEL MP and member of the Legal Committee, Aristos Damianou. According to the MP, it was agreed in the Legal Committee of the Parliament that the amendment to Article 17 of the Constitution on surveillance should remain for discussion and therefore, it will not be voted on in the last Plenary Session of the Parliament, with the current composition.
What does failure mean?
The non-conclusion means that the Police and the KYP cannot carry out surveillance of telephone conversations. Since, the other two bills that are implementing will not be forwarded to the Plenary either. This means that Cyprus will remain the only country in Europe that does not have this weapon to prosecute organized crime. Also, the group being formed to strike organized crime, the notorious Cypriot FBI, will not have this weapon either. So, in the event that this group is set up, it will be toothless from the beginning, since it cannot collect information through phone surveillance. She will be left with the collection of information through the traditional ways and will be deprived of a means that would untie her hands.
The most important thing is that the KYP will not be able to carry out its work in the right and structured way.
It is noted that, as it became clear yesterday, the four votes sought for the constitutional amendment became more after there were "leaks" from almost all parties that agreed in principle, so if the amendment was put to a vote, it had no chance of being approved. With these facts and provided that the composition of the Parliament will change drastically, no one knows anymore what will happen in the coming months and what the fate of the bills will be.
It is recalled that the proposal to amend Article 17 of the Constitution, in order to provide the prosecuting authorities with wider legal access to evidence of electronic communications through search warrants, was made by the FBI experts who had been called by the government for advice on cracking down on organized financial crime. In fact, in their report, the Americans had pointed out that if the Constitution was not amended, the Police's Financial Crimes Unit would continue to conduct investigations without clear results regarding illegal financial activities and violations of sanctions, especially in cases where the merits of the case depend on whether a person had the required criminal intent to participate in criminal activity.
