Admission for financial costs of private lawyers – The Audit Service's response to yesterday's Cyprus Times report
By Manolis Kalatzis
Yesterday, the Audit Service gave a half-hearted response to yesterday's report of the Cyprus Times, in relation to covering the costs for the fees of the private lawyers hired by Odysseas Michaelidiss, so that he can appeal to the Supreme Constitutional Court, against the state!
The Audit Service yesterday by posting the “X”, confirmed that the fees of the private lawyers will be paid by the taxpayers, in violation of circulars, which were issued by the Attorney Generals Petros and Costas Cleridis, in 2005 and 2015.
Yes, the taxpayers will pay
In a post on ” X”, the Audit Service, yesterday, reported: “In relation to a query from the Cyprus Times, for private lawyers who could represent the EY (Audit Service) in any appeal to the ASD (Supreme Constitutional Court) based on Article 139 of the Constitution, there is a judicial precedent that the approval of the GE (Attorney General) is not required, since a similar argument of the General Prosecutor's Office had been rejected”.
In this particular “answer”, the Audit Service avoids an explicit reference to the coverage of financial costs and tries to avoid the scope, making the claim that the approval of the Attorney General is not required to hire private lawyers. He invokes “judicial precedent”, which according to information from the Cyprus Times, the Legal Service and government sources reject with whom we contacted asking for their position. The same sources stated that the issue is considered serious and will be studied.
Opacity and arbitrariness
The recruitment of private lawyers by the Auditor General is obviously completely non-transparent and arbitrary, since it is his own choice, without consulting his Legal Adviser, who according to the Constitution is the Attorney General. As noted by legal circles, even if he were entitled to hire private lawyers at the expense of the state, he would have to do so with a specific procedure, which has been determined by the General Accounting Office.In fact, there is a specific Circular, dated April 27, 2016, signed by the then Accountant General Rea Georgiou, in her capacity as head of the Competent Authority for Public Procurement.
In that Circular, it was stated that the contracts for securing legal services from government agencies should have a specific time horizon. It was also noted that, although it is not necessary to publish a tender notice, “an appropriate number of potentially interested partners may be pre-selected, including the existing partner (lawyer – lawyers), if deemed appropriate, in order to submit their bids ». Even in this process, as noted in the circular, the terms should not be photogenic or excessively favorable in terms of the treatment of specific partners (lawyers). Issues concerning transparency and the protection of competition were also highlighted.
And another circular by Costas Cleridis
Also, in addition to the circular sent in January 2015 by the then General Prosecutor Kostas Cleridis, there was another one, on September 1st, 2015, in which the Auditor General was among the recipients. IN that circular, Mr. Cleridis drew attention to the signing of legal texts without prior legal technical control by the Legal Service. “This action”, according to Mr. Cleridis, “leads to multiple legal problems which the Legal Service is asked to deal with, in retrospect, most of which bring serious financial costs to the state, without providing the possibility of correcting them, since these contracts have already been signed and are now binding on the state as counterparty. (…) you are invited as before the signing of any contract/agreement with a counterparty to the state, except for the contracts drawn up by the Public Procurement Authority (General Accounting Office standards), they are submitted to the Legal Service for the necessary legal and technical review and to check the legality of the of the procedure followed”.
In simple words, any contract with a private person (as in the case of the lawyers hired by Odysseas Michaelidis) should be submitted before being signed to the Attorney General to check both the procedure and the legality, which the Auditor General did not do.
Source: cyprustimes.com
