Turkish Cypriot trade unions and opposition political party the CTP on Thursday took to court the north’s ruling coalition’s decree halting the payment of the cost-of-living allowance to public sector workers until next year.

They filed a request at the ‘TRNC’s’ constitutional court to annul the decree, which was issued hours after the coalition had failed to pass a bill to the same effect through the Turkish Cypriot legislature.

After filing their case, appeared outside northern Nicosia’s courthouse, with public sector workers’ trade union Kamu-Sen leader Metin Altan lambasting the coalition’s decision to issue the decree.

“We are faced with a government which is selling this country out, giving it away, and betraying its people. They issued decrees with the force of law through deceptive tactics. This is a hammer blow to those on fixed incomes,” he said.

He also criticised the use of tear gas and a fire engine hose in attempts to disperse the thousands of demonstrators who descended on the Turkish Cypriot legislature to protest the plans on Monday, saying that the coalition had in ordering this “pitted us against the police”.

“There is no point in prime minister Ustel remaining in his job. The country is being given away. Our lands and all our institutions are being sold off,” he said.

The decree had been issued on Tuesday morning, hours after the coalition had failed to pass a bill to do the same through the Turkish Cypriot legislature. ‘Labour minister’ Oguzhan Hasipoglu had insisted the move was necessary, so as to ensure that the new rules would be in force before the end of March.

In the intervening days, ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman have been engaged in a public argument over the matter, with the latter having expressed distaste at the issuing of a decree.

He had said the coalition had gone “behind the backs” of the Turkish Cypriot people in issuing the decree after having initially appeared to be open for talks with trade unions after failing to pass a bill ordering the cuts through the legislature.

The latest round of the back-and-forth saw Ustel describe Erhurman as “detached from the realities of the country and the world”, after Erhurman had likened Ustel to a “bad April fool’s joke”.

 “We believe that the president’s ‘bad joke’ analogy is more fitting of his own actions to date,” Ustel said.

Earlier, Erhurman had warned that the decree “shatters the very thing we need most in terms of constitutional order, relations within the state structure, and most importantly in crisis management, trust”.