Cyprus’s parliament looks set to abandon plans to grant the intelligence service powers to monitor phone communications without a court order, after cracks emerged within the DISY party and the required votes failed to materialise.
According to information from philenews, the 38 votes needed to amend the Constitution do not appear to be available, with a number of DISY MPs signalling they would not support the bill.
In response, DISY MP Nikos Tornaritis today tabled an amendment on behalf of the party’s parliamentary group that would remove any provision granting the Cyprus Intelligence Service (KYP) authority to conduct phone surveillance without judicial approval.
Under the amendment, all phone monitoring — whether by KYP or the Police — would require a court order. Developments are expected at the next plenary session.
The amendment proposes the deletion of paragraph (b) from Article 2 of the bill, which amends Article 17 of the Constitution. As the explanatory note states, this would delete the procedure for lifting communications secrecy without a court order in cases of imminent, serious and emergency danger or threat to the security and sovereignty of the Republic.
The remaining provisions of the bill would be limited to adding further offences to the existing list for which lifting of communications secrecy is permitted with a court order.
The bill in question is titled “The Twenty-Third Amendment of the Constitution Law (No. 1) of 2026.”