Three relatives of a well-known woman will have their challenge to a court order forcing them to give DNA samples heard again, after Cyprus’s Supreme Court upheld an appeal by the Attorney General and found that the law behind such orders is compatible with EU law.
The three-member appeal bench overturned a ruling by a single Supreme Court judge, who had quashed the DNA order on 3 April 2026. The judge had found that the “rigid and inadequate” criteria in Article 25 of the Police Law made it incompatible with an EU directive, and that the article also breached Article 52 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The appeal bench held that this conclusion was wrong.
It ordered a rehearing to examine the outstanding issues: the time limit for deleting the data, and whether the principles of necessity and proportionality were met when the order was issued.
The bench said Article 25 cannot be examined and applied in isolation from Law 44(I)/2019 but must be read together with it. Because domestic law harmonised with the EU directive requires the competent authority to ensure that personal data are collected and processed in line with those principles, “it cannot be said that the national legislation violates the directive”, the bench said. As the conditions in domestic law are consistent with the directive and the charter, the question was whether this specific order met them, it added.
The woman has been charged in a criminal case linked to a person held in prison. Unknown genetic material had been found on an envelope containing money in a safe deposit box belonging to her, although the warrant for that search has been quashed. The three relatives were asked to give saliva samples but refused, and police then obtained an order from Nicosia District Court and took genetic material from them.
Police had applied for the order as part of an investigation into conspiracy to commit a felony, conspiracy to commit a misdemeanour, offences under the Prevention of Corruption Law, Cap. 161, illegal possession of property and money laundering offences. Five people, including the three relatives as suspects, were reasonably suspected of involvement.
