This afternoon, it is expected that a request for the suspension of the Auditor General will be filed with the Supreme Constitutional Court by the legal team of the Attorney General, as reported by the Cyprus News Agency.
According to the information, final changes are still being made to the text, and the request is expected to be submitted around noon.
Christos Clerides, a lawyer from the Attorney General’s team, when asked by the Cyprus News Agency about the matter, stated that they themselves are also waiting to see when the request will be submitted, and that they want the substance of the issue to be adjudicated.
“We want everything to be examined within the context of the substance,” Clerides said.
“I understand that the complaint is that he exceeded his powers (the Auditor General),” he said, adding that exceeding any powers “does not constitute inappropriate behavior.”
He reminded that courts have “in hundreds of cases” exceeded their powers and are subject to review by the higher court either by appeal or by a request to the Supreme Court for jurisdictional review.
He noted that in our Constitution, “there is explicit provision in Article 139,” that when there is an overstepping of authority or challenge of authority of one organ against another organ, the complaining organ has the right to refer the matter to the Supreme Court, then, today, to the Supreme Constitutional Court, to decide.
Clerides pointed out that issues of jurisdiction are reviewed through a specific procedure and do not constitute inappropriate behavior.
He stated that inappropriate behavior “is something else” and is, in other words, where someone has behaved in such a way that they are not fit for the position.
He mentioned that the powers exercised by the Auditor General, namely the control of expenditures and generally the management of various public and state matters, are not exercised by him alone, but there is an Audit Service and decisions are not unilateral, i.e., of himself, but there is a five-member council that makes these decisions.
“Sometimes there may be disagreement, but in most cases, decisions are unanimous,” Clerides said, and raised the question of whether the Audit Service should be abolished because its decisions are not to everyone’s liking.
Asked by the Cyprus News Agency, he said that the only other such case, for the suspension of an independent state official, was that of the former Deputy Attorney General, Rikkos Erotokritou.
Furthermore, he continued, there have been successive cases in the past in an attempt to suspend judges of the Supreme Court and in one case of the Attorney General himself, Kostas Clerides, for the Trifonos case.
There, he noted, the Council of the then Supreme Court, before being abolished and replaced by the new Council today of the Supreme Constitutional Court, “said that no citizen is entitled to appeal and seek the suspension of an independent official, it is the President who has the exclusive authority to seek this.”
Asked by the Cyprus News Agency if the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General can do this or if they need the approval of the President of the Republic, Clerides said that this is one of the issues to be decided.
Based on the Trifonos case, he said, “only the President of the Republic can give instructions to initiate the procedure.”
“The Attorney General, according to the Constitution, does not have such authority; nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Attorney General is entitled to make requests for the suspension of another, equal-ranking official,” he added.
The one who appoints, if not satisfied and considers that there is misconduct, can refer the matter to the disciplinary against independent officials in some way, he also said.
