The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that it is not unconstitutional nor a violation of European Union law for the construction of luxury camp sites, also known as ‘glamping’, to be subject to planning permission being granted.
Parliament had passed an amendment to the 2018 law regarding environmental assessment impacts on construction projects in June, moving glamping facilities from the law’s ‘second annex’ to its first.
Projects which fall under the second annex are subject to environmental impact assessment studies if it is deemed necessary due to a range of outside factors, whereas projects which fall under the first annex are subject to such studies regardless of circumstances.
First annex projects include many industrial construction projects, such as power stations and waste disposal facilities, but also include other tourism infrastructure such as marinas and golf courses.
Second annex projects tend to include agricultural infrastructure, as well as lighter tourism infrastructure including hotels, tourist complexes outside urban areas, normal campsites and casinos.
Christodoulides referred the law to the Supreme Court in September, arguing that it may run contrary to the principle of separation of powers and European directives regarding services inside the single market.
He also argued that it may violate the constitution and constitute parliamentary overreach, as the law, as well as moving glamping facilities into the law’s first annex, would remove the executive branch of government’s right to determine for itself whether the facilities would require an environmental impact assessment.
Parliament’s lawyers argued that it was parliament’s right to change the law, saying that the executive’s right to exercise discretion in such cases was derived not from the constitution, but from the statute law in question, and that this was not a constitutional right, but a provision laid out in statute which parliament has the right to amend.
The court’s decision read that “it is parliament’s position that its vote was made after consultation with all competent bodies, both governmental and non-governmental, and after evaluating the necessity of introducing [glamping] projects into the first annex.”
It thus found that the law was constitutional.
When the law was passed in June it did not do so unanimously, with 27 votes in favour and 17 against.
In July, Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou had said that the law would unduly infringe on her power in the executive and argued that parliament’s removal of her right to issue decrees on the matter would slow down processes related to the application of European directives.
The previous set of affairs, which allowed agriculture ministers to unilaterally move types of projects between annexes, had “allowed for the acceleration of procedures”, she said, adding that these matters having to pass through parliament would create a “time-consuming and laborious process”.
