A supplementary report issued by the Council of Europe’s corruption watchdog, GRECO, has noted progress in Cyprus over the implementation its recommendations, noting that one recommendation has been implemented.
In a press release, Cyprus Law Office said that the pending recommendation will be addressed with the promotion and adoption of a bill concerning the autonomy of the Law Office. The bill has been drafted and has been submitted to the Ministry of Finance before being submitted to the Council of Ministers.
“GRECO concludes that Cyprus has implemented satisfactorily or dealt in a satisfactory manner nine of the sixteen recommendations contained in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report,” GRECO said in its Addendum to the Second Compliance Report approved last year, adding that of the seven remaining pending recommendations, six recommendations have been partly implemented and one recommendation not implemented.
In its previous report, GRECO noted that three of its implementations were not addressed.
The pending recommendation that concerns strengthening the independence of the prosecutorial functions and the capacity of the individual law officers and prosecutors to conduct their duties in a more autonomous way, guided by the safeguards necessary under the rule of law.
“GRECO considers that, in the absence of any tangible progress, this recommendation still cannot be considered implemented,” the report said.
The other two recommendations have been addressed following the approval of the laws for the creation of the Independent Authority against Corruption, the Code of Principle and Rules of Ethics and Transparency for Members of Parliament and the Law on Regulating Lobbying.
GRECO welcomed the adoption of the Code of Ethics for parliamentarians covering integrity-related matters, “which was a long-awaited development,” as well as the adoption of the law concerning lobbying.
However, GRECO pointed out that “little progress has been made regarding the reform aiming at clarifying the income and various allowances received by MPs as well as the regime of asset declarations” and called on to submit additional information on the implementation of the outstanding recommendations.
With regard to judges, all recommendations are in compliance with recommendations as stated in its previous reports, GRECO said.
Source: Cyprus News Agency