Our View: Blame the judges for grandfather’s harsh sentence

Much has been said and written about the two-and-a-half-year prison sentence imposed on an 82-year-old man for shooting and injuring a man who was attempting stealing electricity cable from his property. The general consensus in the newspapers and on social media was that the sentence imposed by the three-judge bench was extremely harsh given the age and the circumstances of the man, universally referred to as ‘the grandfather’.

Everyone pointed out that there were mitigating circumstances – the man, who was in poor health and had mobility problems, lived on his own in an isolated area and had reported to police incidents of theft at his property on four occasions before the shooting, which suggested he may have been a target of thieves and had had enough. Not that this justified shooting the suspected thief, but there was still a lot of public sympathy for him, especially as he had a clean record and confessed to the crime.

A day after the sentence, President Nikos Christodoulides, probably moved by the angry public reaction, informed the attorney-general that he wanted to issue a presidential pardon. Attorney-general George Savvides said he could not do this for constitutional reasons, while the president insisted he would not give up his effort to pardon the man. This has resulted in Savvides being held responsible for the suffering of the grandfather, who had to be taken to hospital soon after his sentence because of health problems.

The truth, however, was that the AG, as the legal advisor of the state, has a duty of upholding constitutional order. There could not be a presidential pardon a couple of days after the criminal court had passed a custodial sentence, as this would be against the principle of the separation of powers. The executive cannot interfere in the work of the judiciary, overruling its decision because the president deemed it too harsh, which it probably was. There are restrictions to the powers of the president to ensure against abuses and safeguard the rule of law.

That there had been a precedent in 2020 when Nicos Anastasiades gave a presidential pardon, with the agreement of then AG Costas Clerides, to a man imprisoned for 45 days for violating the curfew of the pandemic era by 15 minutes. That was an absurdly harsh sentence, but it still did not justify the intervention of the president in the work of the judiciary. Nor did it mean that because Anastasiades violated the separation of powers his successor is entitled to do so as well.

If people are angry, they should be criticising the judges who passed the custodial sentence instead of giving the grandfather a suspended prison sentence. Then again, the man pleaded guilty to using a gun and causing serious bodily harm to the suspected thief. Normally, under Cyprus law, this would justify a prison sentence. It was up to the judges to decide that the many convincing mitigating circumstances justified a suspended sentence, and they did not do so. Public criticism should perhaps be directed at the judges instead of the AG, who is standing for constitutional order.