Tag: crime

Is parliamentary immunity obsolete?

While reading this article in Cyprus Mail, I had to ask myself if parliamentary immunity is any good.  Why do members of parliament need this privilege.  Wikipedia suggests:

Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which members of the parliament or legislature are granted partial immunity from prosecution. Before prosecuting, it is necessary that the immunity be removed, usually by a superior court of justice or by the parliament itself. This reduces the possibility of pressing a member of the parliament to change his vote by fear of prosecution.

I think this doesn’t work anymore in the modern society.  Those who do need to press MPs usually will find ways to do so, parliamentary immunity or not.  Giving MPs such an immunity relies on their good nature. And we all know how good-natured an average politician is.  The example was given in the above-mentioned Cyprus Mail article.

Update: another article in the same newspaper covers the story, and, among other things, suggests an interesting approach to the problem – a “name and shame” policy.

As we cannot expect our deputies to behave like law-abiding citizens with regard to traffic fines, the relevant article of the constitution, which allows them to flout the law, would have to be changed. Of course for the article to be changed, a two-thirds majority would be needed in the legislature, and we doubt there would be 38 deputies willing to vote for surrendering their privilege not to pay traffic fines.

There is an alternative. The police and municipalities could make public, once a month, the names of deputies who had refused to pay their parking and speeding tickets. A name and shame policy would be the ideal solution so that voters are aware which Representatives are so cheap they abuse their privilege in order not to pay a small fine.

Strike cure found by Cyprus government

Air-traffic controllers were striking way too much recently.  Cyprus government took an unusually fast and serious action.  They found a cure.  Cyprus Mail reports:

The government bill, fast-tracked by the executive and the legislature working in rare unison, makes it a criminal offence for any ATC to refuse to work when required, and provides for penalties of up two years in prison and/or a fine of €2,550. The penalties are provided for under an existing law.

Given the economic downfall, unemployment rates, and the dependency of Cyprus on air traffic (being an island and a tourism attraction), I think this is reasonable and much needed.

Cyprus prison population

The other day I was reading Cyprus Mail’s coverage of Cyprus prison overpopulation problem.  As any other problem it does involve attention.  But for me personally the article was more useful with absolute numbers rather than relative.  This paragraph in particular:

Cyprus’ total prison population in June this year, including pre-trial detainees and remand prisoners, was 831. Its prison population rate reached 105 per 100,000 members of the population, lower than the EU average of 137 per 100,000.

Can you imagine that there are only, more or less, 830 people in prison?  And some of them aren’t even proven criminals yet – pre-trial detainees!

Coming from Russia, with it’s multi-million population and millions of people in correctional facilities, and criminal culture tightly integrated into the population with TV, movies, music and language; so tight indeed that even presidents, premiers and ministers are using bits and pieces of it during their public speeches and appearances; I find it almost impossible to believe that there are less than a 1,000 people in Cyprus jails.

Sex worker excuses

Cyprus Mail reports:

A SEX WORKER in Nicosia’s old town yesterday spoke out after a heated altercation with residents and police outside her place of work on Tuesday night. “I’ve been in the business on this street for six years, and now all of a sudden the neighbours remember to get annoyed” the 49-year-old told the Cyprus Mail. 

I’ve heard this excuse so many times and even used it myself a few times. But if you think about it for a second, you’d realize that it’s plain silly. If something wrong is going on and it annoys you and you don’t do anything about it for a long period of time, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do anything about it forever. There is a breaking point for everything.

“I do not bother anyone and if they do not like my line of work, then they should help me get out of it, not persecute me.”

Obviously, you do bother someone. And even though they probably should help you to get out of this line of work, they don’t have to. After all each one of them makes an effort on his own not to get into it. And each one of them succeeds, so why shouldn’t you?

Not that I have anything against this line work.

Residents complained that clients of the sex worker would often wander on the street in their underwear or completely naked, while some drunken clients would even urinate outside their doors.
“Several cars pass by every night, blowing their horns and shouting at the sex worker” said another neighbour.

There we go against “I do not bother anyone”. Maybe not you, but your clients do.

Mavrou said that the authorities had encountered serious difficulties in proving the pimping charges due to the vagueness of the current legislation on prostitution.
According to police, the legislation is unclear as to whether brothels can operate in residential areas or anywhere else, while the circumstances by which a person engages in paid sex are also vague.

That, for some reason, is my favorite bit of the article, together with this:

Nicosia’s “red light district” has been predominantly confined to three streets in the old town since the 1950s on Soutsou, Pentadaktylou and Theseos streets. The woman in question was working out of a house on Theseos Street.

It’s so nice of them to specify exactly where the “red light district” is for those of us who don’t know Nicosia highlights that well.