Cyprus’s Supreme Constitutional Court has ruled that state officials cannot claim retroactive pension payments outside the strict constitutional time limit of 75 days, even if a law is later declared unconstitutional.
The landmark ruling rejected claims from former officials seeking pension payments that had been suspended between May 2011 and October 2014 under provisions later deemed unconstitutional in the 2014 “Koutselini-Ioannidou” case.
In its judgment, the court established that constitutional challenge deadlines are rigid and cannot be suspended even when subsequent court decisions invalidate the underlying legislation.
The court clarified that decisions nullifying laws do not automatically have retroactive effect for all potential claimants but apply only to those who were parties to the original case.
“The state had no legal obligation to retroactively pay pensions to those who had not filed appeals before the Koutselini-Ioannidou decision,” the ruling stated.
The case concerned state officials whose pensions were suspended when they assumed new public offices or positions in the wider public sector after retirement under a 2011 law.
Following the Koutselini-Ioannidou ruling, the Treasury Department paid retroactive pensions only to the original applicants in that case while restoring payments for all eligible officials from the date of the judgement.
Officials who had not participated in the initial appeal later sought retroactive payments, which were rejected by the Treasury based on a Law Office opinion. The Administrative Court initially ruled in their favour, but the Attorney General appealed the decision.
The Supreme Court accepted the Attorney General’s position and overturned the Administrative Court’s ruling, definitively finding that the appeals were filed too late and did not establish a right to retroactive payment.
The case was handled on behalf of the Attorney General by Senior Counsel Elena Symeonidou and State Counsels Maria Kotsoni and Pavlos Vasiliou, according to a Law Office announcement.
