President refers laws, House convenes emergency plenary 

The House plenary will be convening in an emergency session on Thursday, after the president referred a law back to parliament, along with three others to the Supreme Constitutional Court.

President Nikos Christodoulides has referred the law on collective management of intellectual property and related rights and on granting multi-territorial licences for online uses of musical works, which was voted on July 11, the plenary’s last session before the summer break.

The law was deemed necessary because it appeared creators and artists were not getting paid for their intellectual work.

Justifying the referral, the president cited the law’s incompatibility with EU legislation.

President Christodoulides also considers the restriction of management income included in the law – 10 per cent of gross income – to be unconstitutional and in not in line with the EU charter of fundamental freedoms.

The obligation of collective management organisations and users to mutually determine fees was also considered unconstitutional.

Furthermore, the obligation of the management to receive applications online is also considered to be in violation of the principle of separation of powers.

Earlier, on Thursday the House commerce committee will be meeting to discuss the referral of the law.

Attorney-general Giorgos Savvides and Commerce Minister George Papanastasiou have been invited to attend.

President Christodoulides has also referred to the Supreme Constitutional Court three laws passed by the plenary, on the grounds of them being unconstitutional and violating the separation of powers and EU legislation.

The referrals have been set for September 4 for instructions by the Supreme Court.

The first law concerns capital statements – pothen esches – of politically exposed persons.

The president also referred to the Supreme Constitutional Court the law introducing further arrangements to the National Solidarity Fund (NSF) for the haircut victims of the 2013 banking crisis.

The final referral was the amending law on the assessment of the impact on the environment from certain projects, as it was deemed in violation of the principles of separation of powers, EU directives regarding services in the internal market and the assessment of impact of public and private projects on the environment.

It was also considered to violate articles of the constitution.