On Thursday, the Plenary Session voted 44-0 in favor of a bill introduced by DIKO MPs Chrysanthos Savvides, Zacharias Koulias, and Panikos Leonidou, which amends the Public Education Service Law to revise the scoring criteria for candidates who have served in the National Guard or the armed forces of a Member State for the purpose of promoting teaching staff to the next available promotion level.
Speaking before the Plenary, Mr. Savvidis said that we are not discussing today a privilege or a preferential arrangement in favor of a specific category of educators. We are discussing, he emphasized, the rectification of an inequality and the application of the principle of equal treatment.
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Mr. Savvides said that the balance within the promotion system is not being disrupted, and that the goal from the outset is to address discrimination in a fair manner and in accordance with the principle of equality before the law.
AKEL MP Christos Christofides said that passing this amendment to the legislation is necessary and recalled that there is also a report by the Commissioner for Administration regarding the different treatment of Cypriots and Greeks inconscripts.
Mr. Christofides also raised the issue of the House’s ability to introduce bills and referred to the bill introduced by AKEL regarding teachers on indefinite contracts, against which the governmentappealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that employer-employee relationships in the public service can be regulated only by the Government.
The bill, he said, was ruled unconstitutional, “and I can cite five or six more examples where, depending on who introduces the bill, the Christodoulides government reacts accordingly.”
The unconstitutionality of a bill, he said, has nothing to do with whether the government agrees with it or not; rather, the key criterion for those in power is where a bill comes from and its substance.
Mr. Koulias recalled that the bill had been submitted by Christos Orfanidis and Pavlos Mylonas during the previous parliamentary session. He noted that similar legislation existed for Cypriot National Guardsmen serving two-year terms and that it is now being extended to Greeks to address this injustice.
He also said that regarding the various bills, it does not matter which government is in power, but rather whether a proposal is correct, fair, and in accordance with the Constitution.
Mr. Leonidou said that regarding AKEL’s bill on permanent teachers, DIKO—which is considered a coalition partner—also voted in favor. Therefore, he said, I do not see why the government referred the matter to the Court. “Unconstitutionality is not determined solely by whether or not you increase funding; the Supreme Court or the Constitutional Court ruled that there was unconstitutionality because there was no unanimous opinion within the government,” he stated in response to Mr. Christofides.
In his rebuttal, Mr. Christofides said that his party indeed did not understand why the government had sent that legislation to the Supreme Court, since it could have facilitated the process. He disagreed with the assertion that unconstitutionality is determined by the government’s consent and read aloud the Supreme Court’s decision and its reasoning.
According to Mr. Christofides, the government must take a position of principle—namely, whether the House of Representatives can take a stance and introduce bills that relate to these issues and obviously do not increase government expenditures, or whether the government’s position is determined based on who submits the bill.
The bill was examined by the Parliamentary Committee on Education in its previous composition during two sessions held on February 12 and September 17, 2025. During the current parliamentary session, the committee decided to proceed with the review of the bill, taking into account its examination by the corresponding committee of the previous session.
During the review, the rapporteurs noted, among other things, that the proposed regulation eliminates the adverse discrimination and distortion observed against male candidates from Greece who servein Army units in Cyprus and Greece, since such service will be credited with points, as is the case for Cypriot candidates. In this way, their ranking on the lists of appointees and eligible candidates will not be negatively affected.
It is worth recalling that the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, during the previous parliamentary session, expressed reservations and submitted recommendations to ensure that the provisions of the bill would be compatible with both EU law and the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus. Specifically, it was proposed that the scoring system apply exclusively to compulsory military service in the National Guard or in the armed forces of a candidate’s home country, both in the lists of appointees and in the lists of eligible candidates, and to clarify that the points are awarded, regardless of whether the candidate completed their military service before or after obtaining their first degree.
It was also recommended that provisions be made so that, in the process for filling promotional positions, the points awarded for service in the National Guard or in the armed forces of a Member Stateto all candidates, regardless of gender. The proposals were adopted.
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