Corruption in Cyprus

The government of Cyprus has in theory made some progress in fighting against corruption, and one of them is the amendment to its Criminal Code in 2012 which provides the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption. The supposedly strong and independent judicial system is neither strong or independent. Nor is it competent enough to uphold most of the legal principles it supposedly has adopted except for the protection of property rights. Critics would however argue that this display of competency is due to the reason that foreign investors do not consider corruption a pressing issue for doing business in Cyprus. .[1] However, a whistleblower protection law is needed in the country in order to ensure an effective anti-corruption measure. It is also important to note that money-laundering remains a serious problem in the country. In addition, corruption scandals involving politicians from major political parties are not uncommon and when these get uncovered, little to no effort in taken to pursue them. The usual “defense” employed by accused politicians, involves official statements indicating that “they know too much” and if their case is pursued, they will uncover dirt involving other political party members.[2]

In Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"), Cyprus scored 52. When ranked by score, Cyprus ranked 51st among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector.[3] For comparison, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the worst score was 12 (ranked 180), and the average score was 43.[4] Transparency International's 2013 Global Corruption Barometer report shows that 72% of respondents believe that level of corruption increased in Cyprus over the previous two years[5]

• Cyprus
• Police corruption in Cyprus

• Cyprus Corruption Profile from the Business Anti-Corruption Portal