Young offenders to be housed at Menoyia

Young offenders will soon be housed in a building at the Menoyia migrant detention centre, Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the House ethics committee, he said a spare building at the site, which houses migrants awaiting repatriation, is set to undertake the function of housing young offenders.

He said the building at Menoyia earmarked to house the young offenders “meets the relevant provisions of the regulations for this use” and that for this reason, “the construction of a new building will not be necessary.”

The main theme of Wednesday’s committee meeting was the European Commission’s annual report into the rule of law in Cyprus, with the separation of powers in both the legal service and the audit service one of the main matters raised in the report.

Hartsiotis pointed out that the commission had “positively evaluated” the government’s efforts thus far to “modernise” the legal service, and that the commission had made no other citations in its report regarding the administration of justice in Cyprus.

With this in mind, he said his ministry has now finished drafting the bill to alter the formations of both the legal service and the audit office.

He pointed out that the changes to the law would require amendments to the constitution, and that these steps were to be presented to cabinet.

He said that once cabinet has approved the plans, meetings will be held with both the legal service and the audit office to offer “initial information on the legislation’s philosophy”, before both services will be given copies of the legislation.

Then, he said, the matter will undergo consultation and technical legal checks, before being eventually sent to parliament.

“These are two radical constitutional reforms, and they impact a series of existing laws and the passing of new ones to make everything legal,” he said.

However, auditor-general Odysseas Michaelides disagreed with Hartsiotis’ reading of the report, saying there is “no reference to the alleged modernisation of the audit service” in the report.

He added that there is “no other service in the Republic of Cyprus” which has so readily undergone modernisation, and that no study had been carried out regarding any future modernisation of the Audit Office.

“On the contrary, the only reports which exist are about the crucial role of the Audit Office in Cyprus is the fight against corruption. Although it is very rare for an audit office to change its form and model, Sweden did so in 2020, and in fact made its audit office more like Cyprus, having a single-member office, rather than doing the opposite,” he said.

Legal service representative Elena Kleopa said the legal service would “study the bills proposed by the justice ministry” and “contribute to them”.