Members of parliament on Wednesday expressed their bemusement at the government’s latest bill aimed at regulating traditional Easter bonfires, known as “lambradjies”.

The House legal affairs committee examined the bill, which, if passed, would require a person over the age of 21 years old with a clean criminal record to apply to their local authority for a permit.

The bill also foresees that material used in the lambradjia only be provided by the local authority in question. Additionally, all lambradjies would have to be set at least 30 metres away from any building, while the police and the fire brigade would have to be given formal notice.

Akel MP Aristos Damianou was the first to take the bill apart, speaking of “sloppiness” and “incompetence” on the part of the government in submitting the bill “just a few weeks before Easter”.

He also pointed out that parliament had just a few weeks ago passed a law prohibiting the lighting of fires in residential areas, adding that the government “did not foresee that this law also criminalises the custom of lambradjia”.

“In an attempt to correct its mistake, the government hastily brought forward a new bill, which essentially annuls the existing law which prohibits the lighting of fires in residential areas … There was no consultation with municipalities or villages, though it would have been necessary, and now they are expected to assume a great responsibility,” he said.

He also pointed out that in Nicosia, for example, there are dozens of churches, and that placing the responsibility for monitoring lambradjies onto the capital’s municipality would stretch it beyond its limits.

“The government seems to expect a mayor and a city council to take on the responsibility for monitoring the lambradjies – something the police and the fire brigade are unable, justifiably unable, to do,” he said.

Diko MP Zacharias Koulias took a different angle, but was equally scathing of the government, decrying the “excessively severe penalties” foreseen by the bill for those setting illegal lambradjies.

Were the bill to be passed into law, those found guilty of setting illegal lambradjies would face up to 10 years in prison or fines of up to €75,000 – something Koulias described as “unrealistic and unthinkable”.

“It is almost certain that no reasonable court will impose such penalties,” he added.

Green party MP Charalambos Theopemptou went further, suggesting the bill may violate international law.

He said the bill contravenes the Stockholm Convention, which was signed in 2001 and aims to restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants.

The convention was co-opted into European Union law in 2004, with the EU regulation most recently updated in 2019.

“The ban on lighting open fires is based on the fact that burning material emits dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere, which can be characterised as carcinogens or hormone disruptors, affecting the human reproductive system and its resistance to microbes,” he said.

He said the government’s new bill overrides the specific conditions needed for an exemption for a permit for an open fire to be granted, and that it thus “violates both the Stockholm Convention and the EU directives”.