The hastily prepared bill for the recall of cars with faulty components, which was chopped and changed throughout Thursday by the House transport committee, will be put to the vote at a session of the legislature called for this purpose on Monday. Deputies were united in their support of the final draft, which could have been approved at Thursday’s plenum – the last one of this year – although wiser heads suggested that more time should be given to study the bill, before it was put to the vote.

Will a weekend be enough to eliminate any grey areas, weaknesses and impractical provision and to finalise the bill? Probably not, but this is how the parties have always operated, having no qualms about rushing through legislation that has not been properly examined and adequately discussed. It is indicative of this slapdash approach that the transport committee called in representatives of the Road Transport Department and the legal service for advice on the bill that would have been put to the vote a few hours later.

Is it any wonder that we often end up with laws that are subsequently ruled unconstitutional, found to feature gaping loopholes or are almost impossible to implement? This is inevitable when at the final plenum of each year dozens of bills are summarily approved; the same happens on a smaller scale, before the summer recess. The above-mentioned bill was, admittedly, a matter of urgency because the faulty Takata airbags that are in thousands of cars are a risk to drivers, but this as been known for many months without anything being done.

This is partly because the issue of car component recalls is complicated. According to estimates there could be 80,000 cars subject to a recall, for a variety of reasons, at present. There are – again according to estimates – some 16,000 cars with the Takata airbags circulating, and there has already been an announcement for the recall of Mazda Demio cars. Who will undertake the replacement of the airbags of these cars in Cyprus? There is a Mazda dealer, but thousands of the Demio model are second-hand imported primarily from Japan by companies that have no service garage. Who will do the necessary work and who will pick up the bill in such cases?

There had been talk about the immobilisation of cars under recall, but how would people depending on their car get around? The head of the car importers association said this week that replacing all the faulty airbags could take years, given the number of cars affected. In the law, he said, there was a provision stipulating that the Takata airbags were replaced within three months, which was impossible. No dealership has the staff to perform this task in such a short time.

Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades, speaking on Friday, admitted the difficulty of the situation and acknowledged that people would be inconvenienced, but there was no choice when people’s safety was at stake. His ministry was examining the possibility of the government covering the extra cost of hiring more staff by car dealers, so that the replacements could be speeded up, but are there workers for such jobs?

There is pressure to come up with answers, but deputies must consider practical solutions with a reasonable time-frame for implementation rather approve a law that cannot be enforced and will end up being a dead letter.