NICOSIA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus has failed to apply Council of Europe recommendations to prevent corruption in the judiciary, an official of the Council's anticorruption body said on Thursday.
"GRECO's recommendations are not optional, so we look forward to their implementation by the Cyprus authorities," Gianluca Esposito, executive secretary of Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), told the Cypriot parliamentary ethics committee.
GRECO, the anti-corruption monitoring body of the Council of Europe, sent a delegation under Esposito to Cyprus to examine the state of affairs in the administration of justice.
The visit was arranged a month ago but it coincided with an uproar caused by allegations by the island's Attorney General about improper relations of judges.
He claimed that the president of the Supreme Court and three judges who separately issued controversial decisions on two cases concerning criminal offences by Bank of Cyprus officials prior and during the 2013 economic crisis, had improper relations with the bank and the law office representing the lender.
"We are aware of and will be taking into consideration all latest developments," Esposito said.
He told lawmakers that Cyprus adopted only two of 16 recommendations to combat state corruption in general, but none of the recommendations relating to the judiciary.
These concern the restructuring of the highest level of justice, transparent rules for the appointment and promotion of judges, introduction of a code of conduct for judges, rules to prevent conflict of interest, and training and education of judges.
Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou, who met the delegation after the parliamentary committee session, has said that his ministry has prepared legislation for reform the administration of justice at a cost of 120 million euros (about 136.22 million U.S. dollars).
He did state specifically that these were intended to apply GRECO recommendations.
The beleaguered president of the Supreme Court also announced last week a new code of conduct for judges, presumably to stave off GRECO criticism.
Without entering into details, Esposito said his delegation will look "into the recently issued code of conduct and the ongoing judicial reform."
He said GRECO will release its next report on Cyprus by the end of 2019.
"Recommendations must be adopted within a specified time limit," Esposito said, hinting at possible sanctions if Cyprus failed to comply in time.
