By George Koumoulli
The primary responsibility of the Attorney General (G.I.) is to protect, maintain and promote the rule of law. This means that the G.E. must ensure that the law is applied equally and fairly for all and that checks and balances are maintained between the three powers – the legislative, executive and judicial powers.
Another justified concern of the public is the suspension of criminal proceedings on grounds of “public interest” by the Attorney General.
The “public interest” is largely subjective, and because the reasons why a criminal prosecution stops each time are not made public, it is natural to suspect that the g.e. favors some “heroes”.
A few months ago, MP Irene Charalambidou demanded in vain from the G.E. the reasoning behind his decision to close the case for bribing a member of the Radio and Television Authority by a canal master.
The fact that the alibi of the public interest of the General Secretariat for the suspension of criminal prosecution is perforated, is revealed by his recent decision not to prosecute the former commander of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Mr. Katsounotos.
I recall that in his conclusion, Mr. Emilianidis stated that he considers that Mr. Katsounotos may have committed the offense of abuse of power under the first paragraph of Article 105 of the Criminal Code and the offense of conspiracy under Article 373. Both of these offenses are misdemeanors.
As a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus who has read the reasoning behind the decision, I am concerned about the strange attempt of the Legal Service to take out Mr. Katsounotos, still attributing good intentions to him.
We are told to fall asleep that “it seems that the motive in Mr. Katsounotos’ communication with this particular convict was the extraction of information related to his duties and the possible commission of offenses by persons within the Central Prisons”.
I would like to ask G.E. how this conclusion is reconciled with the following message from Mr. Katsounotos to a convict of the Central Prisons: “All I want is some videos that burn them (Aristotelous and Demetriou). If you have or if you find them, send them to me and I know what I will do.”
To further justify his decision, the Secretary-General refers to a statement made by England’s Secretary-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, in 1951 in the House of Commons: “It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be – that suspected criminal offenses must automatically be the subject of prosecution”.
This quote is misleading because Shawcross went on to explain after this statement exactly what he wanted to say, i.e. “It is not always in the public interest to go through the whole process of the criminal law if, at the end of the day, perhaps because of mitigating circumstances, perhaps because of what the defendant has already suffered, only a nominal penalty is likely to be imposed”
(https://dpp.govmu.org/Documents/Publications%20and%20Communique/SirHartleyShawcross).
In Greek: “It is not always in the public interest to complete the entire criminal law process if, at the end of the day, perhaps due to mitigating circumstances, perhaps because of what the accused has already suffered, only a symbolic sentence is likely to be imposed.” Thank God, Mr. Katsounotos is neither mentally retarded, nor very old, nor has he been tortured by any organ of the state to justify his non-prosecution.
In summary, what should worry everyone is that there are no safeguards in place to ensure control over the G.E.’s handling of suspensions of criminal prosecutions.
There should be some other institution that can control such decisions and demand their revision based on the common sense of justice and/or the Constitution. It is undemocratic for only an appointed, and not elected, person to decide what the public interest is and when to exercise the privilege of ‘nolle prosequi’.
