Ενημερώνουμε τα μέλη μας ότι ο Παγκύπριος Δικηγορικός Σύλλογος συμμετείχε στον νέο κύκλο αξιολόγησης από την Ευρωπαική Επιτροπή για την ετοιμασία της Έκθεσης του Κράτους Δικαίου για το 2025. Ο ΠΔΣ έθεσε γραπτώς και προφορικώς τις θέσεις του στην Ευρωπαική Επιτροπή για θέματα απονομής της δικαιοσύνης, διαφθοράς, και άλλα επίκαιρα θέματα.
Παραθέτουμε συνοπτικά τις θέσεις και εισηγήσεις του ΠΔΣ που τέθηκαν σε σχέση με το σύστημα απονομής της Δικαιοσύνης.
CBA ANSWERS / POSITION / RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Justice System
Despite some recent reforms, problems at the first-instance court level remain unresolved, mainly due to the strong reluctance of the Supreme Court to take decisive action, as well as due to a lack of sufficient funding from the government. These issues undermine the system’s efficiency and credibility, leading to a significant drop in court cases over the last decade. This signifies citizens’ hardship in entrusting the justice system and has also created a serious professional crisis for lawyers.
Historical Overview
To fully understand the current situation, a brief historical context is necessary.
Delays in the Justice System
For years, the justice system was neglected, with no significant investment or modernization from successive governments and the Supreme Court. No substantial reforms were implemented, leaving the system to function with outdated procedures and insufficient resources, while at the same time the legal issues were more and more complex.
As a result, case backlogs have become overwhelming. Today, a civil case can take up to 10 years to be resolved at the first-instance level, while until the establishment of the Court of Appeal in 2023 it took another 7–8 years for an appeal, with the situation now having slightly improved as the Court of Appeal, the 2nd instance court, is hearing Appeals submitted in 2019-2020.
Lack of Effective Enforcement
At the same time, it is important to underline that even when litigants obtain a judgment, enforcing it is often impossible. The main reasons include that:
- Creditors cannot access debtors’ bank details, making it hard to seize funds.
- Selling a debtor’s property through the legal system can take decades.
- Bailiffs frequently fail to seize movable property, claiming no assets were found, with no system to verify their work. On this point, we believe it is time to entrust enforcement to private professionals.
- Parliament has excluded most personal assets from enforcement, including furniture, equipment, clothing, and even high-value family cars.
As a result, citizens and businesses not only endure long delays for justice but often find their judgments meaningless due to unenforceability.
Consequences
These systemic failures have discouraged people from seeking justice through the courts. While in the early 2000s, approximately 40,000 new lawsuits were filed annually, this number has plummeted to fewer than 5,000 in 2024.
During the same period, the number of lawyers has increased from 1,000 to 4,500. This imbalance has created a survival crisis, particularly for young lawyers, who in some cases struggle to earn more than €800–1,000 per month.
Reforms and their Shortcomings
Turning now to the recent reforms, it must first be noted that no action has been taken to improve judgment enforcement. The Bar Association has made detailed recommendations, but they are still under review.
Additionally, the recent reforms focused mainly on the upper courts, while the lower courts, where delays are most severe, were largely ignored. Judges and lawyers are under pressure by the Supreme Court to speed up trials, often at the expense of quality.
The only major reform at this level was the introduction of new Civil Procedure Rules on 1 September 2023, but these only apply to new cases. The backlog is still being handled under the old rules, and even the new system is struggling. The new Civil Procedure Rules were designed to streamline procedures and prevent unnecessary postponements. The main innovation was that the preliminary stages were meant to resolve all procedural issues, so there would be no reason for a postponement after a case is scheduled for trial. However, the implementation has been problematic. This is because Judges lack the time to enforce the new rules properly due to their overwhelming workloads. The Bar Association suggested assigning new cases only to judges without backlogs, but this suggestion was ignored.
Regarding the backlog, the Supreme Court set a target a few years ago to conclude 20% of cases up to 2018 by 2024 and 40% by 2026. However, although it is now 2025 and we have already surpassed 60%, we consider this target and progress insignificant. By the time all cases up to 2018 are concluded in the next few years, we will once again face a backlog of cases from 2019 to 2027-2028.
In regards to the proposition of implementing the new civil procedure rules for backlog cases, we do not believe this will have a positive impact on reducing the time needed for their resolution. The majority of backlog cases are already scheduled for hearing, with all procedural stages completed, and the primary reason for their continuous postponement is a lack of available court time.
Recommendations for Immediate Action
Beyond the introduction of new Civil Procedure Rules, no meaningful reforms have been made. There is still a lot to do to fully reform and modernize the justice system. Bold decisions are needed, but as we have already said there is strong reluctance from the Supreme Court to take decisive action and implement progressive and innovative ideas. The government has also failed to invest in the justice system The Bar has made various recommendations over the years, but we will today focus on the four we consider most important.
- Structural Reform:
- Civil and criminal courts should be permanently separated. Judges should specialize in one field instead of rotating between them.
- In such case Judicial appointments would be streamlined. Today, candidates must have mixed experience, which is unrealistic. Under this system, only criminal law practitioners would apply for criminal court positions, and the same principle would apply to civil law.
- Establishment of the Commercial and Admiralty Courts:
- Despite legislation being passed over two years ago, these courts have yet to be implemented. This must proceed without further delay as these courts would significantly reduce the burden on first-instance courts and promote specialization. The CBA strongly believes there are qualified and capable lawyers available to staff the Commercial and Admiralty courts, and the relevant appointments should be proceeded immediately.
- Full Digitalization of the Justice System:
- We urgently need to fully digitalize the Justice system. The use of technology in the courts remains shockingly inadequate.
- The e-Justice system collapsed, and the Deputy Ministry of Innovation and the Judicial Service promised an upgrade of the existing i-Justice platform. This would be a positive development, however, its functionality is limited to basic document filing. The same would of course have been the case with the e-justice system. Implementing more technological tools is necessary. For example, the Bar Association has pushed for virtual court appearances via telephone or video conferencing (e.g., Zoom), but there is strong resistance from judges.
- Moreover, digital audio recording of court proceedings is still not available, forcing courts to rely on stenographers or steno typists. This causes major delays in issuing transcripts, thus affecting hearings, submissions, and appeals.
- Improved Infrastructure and Staffing:
- Finally, there is an urgent need for improved infrastructure and adequate Court staff. Court buildings are outdated, particularly in Nicosia, where promises of a new courthouse have remained unfulfilled for decades.
- At the same time, staffing shortages are severe. It takes months or even years to draft court judgments and assess legal costs due to insufficient personnel.
General issues
- We propose the establishment of a judicial school in order for lawyers to be properly trained for the practice of the judicial profession.
- The Cypriot courts, although familiar with the preliminary referral, are reluctant to submit questions to the Court of the European Union. Without submitting preliminary references, there may be different interpretations of EU law by national courts, which could lead to inconsistency and uncertainty in the case law and the application of European law across various Member States. Furthermore, avoiding preliminary references may hinder the full protection of citizens’ rights based on EU law, as national court decisions may not align with the interpretation of the CJEU. When national courts do not seek the opinion of the CJEU, decisions may be issued that do not comply with EU legislation, creating uncertainty for individuals and businesses affected. EU law typically addresses matters that affect more than one Member State. If national courts do not make references, they may delay or fail to resolve legal issues with a cross-border dimension. We believe that training in EU law is needed for judges as well as lawyers.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, we believe the justice system requires an independent court service led by professionals with management expertise. This body should have the authority to implement swift reforms, eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies, and drive innovation.
Without urgent action, the inefficiencies of the justice system will continue to harm litigants, erode public trust, and deepen the survival crisis for lawyers. Bold decisions are needed to modernize the system and restore faith in timely and enforceable justice.
Lawyers are increasingly pessimistic about their future.
B. Arbitration – Mediation
The CBA is a strong supporter of enhancing the ADR landscape in Cyprus. We believe that Alternative Dispute Resolution methods will benefit the overall administration of justice and is a supplement to any modern legal system.
The CBA promotes ADR through the Cyprus Arbitration and Mediation Centre, an institution providing ADR services and which organises related seminars and events.
Review of Arbitration legislation
We welcome the government initiative to review Cyprus’ Arbitration Laws, namely the Domestic Arbitration Law, Cap.4 which resembles the Arbitration Act of England of 1950 and the International Commercial Arbitration Law of 1987 which bring into force the UNCITRAL Arbitration Model Law.
The CBA was actively involved in the consultations that the Ministry of Justice conducted with various stakeholders. We agree with the direction of the initiative, which is to modernize and unify the two Laws, which hopefully will make Arbitration more appealing to society and will bring the legal framework up to date with modern arbitration practices. The benefit will be two-fold. It will provide a robust alternative to litigation, also assisting the Court system to tackle its backlog and possibly can form the basis for Cyprus to become an international dispute resolution center.
Mediation in civil cases
After conducting consultations aimed at enhancing the use of mediation and resolving practical issues that have arisen from the implementation of the law, the Ministry of Justice and Public Order drafted an amending bill titled “Mediation on Certain Matters in Civil Disputes (Amendment) Law of 2025” and Regulations titled “Mediation in Civil Disputes Regulations of 2025.
The bill includes amendments to the law with the aim of making the institution of mediation more effective and functional. These amendments include the consolidation of the two currently maintained Registers of Mediators into a single unified Register, as well as mandatory training for all mediators without exception.
One of the key innovations introduced by the proposed bill is the mandatory initial mediation session, when the value of the dispute does not exceed ten thousand euros (€10,000). This threshold was chosen, as the Ministry of Justice stated, to align with the provisions of the Civil Procedure Procedural Regulations of 2023.
Whilst the CBA welcomes any initiative that strengthens ADR, including mediation, we have made some suggestions in the initial discussions taking place in the House of Representatives, in order for this initiative to not hinder citizens’ access to justice and place further costs on litigants. One such suggestion made by the CBA is that any case ending up in the court system which has gone through the mandatory mediation session should be exempted from the mandatory pre-action protocol introduced with the New Civil Procedure Rules as both mediation and the pre-action protocol aim to exhaust all possible avenues for resolving disputes without resorting to litigation. If mediation fails to achieve this, requiring litigants to also complete the pre-action protocol only adds unnecessary legal costs, which could be deemed as a barrier to access to justice. This needs the consent of the Supreme Court which is the body that has the authority to amend the Civil Procedure Rules. There also seems to be an initial consensus amongst stakeholders that the threshold of 10,000 could be lowered.
C. New Court of Appeal (administrative) – New judicial council competent to deal with administrative judges
The general intention of the bill is in the right direction, since it attempts to correct a distortion that was created after the separation of the single Supreme Court into the Supreme Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court. In particular, it is attempting to bring the administrative justice structure under the Supreme Constitutional Court, instead of the Supreme Court as is currently the case, which we agree with.
The new Administrative Court of Appeal will focus on appeals from the Administrative Court and the Administrative Court of International Protection, providing a higher level of oversight and specialized adjudication for issues related to public administration, government decisions, and regulations. The creation of a new judicial council specifically for administrative judges is intended to enhance the governance and regulation of administrative courts, ensuring that these judges are properly appointed, evaluated, and held accountable within the administrative law system. This could also potentially help streamline procedures and improve the quality of decision-making in administrative cases. However, the approach adopted to implement this structural change does not seem to comply with the Constitution. We believe that the amendments introducing the new Judicial Council should be made to the 33/1964 legislation.
Παγκύπριος Δικηγορικός Σύλλογος
