The imminent reform of the legal service is “possibly the biggest yet” and as such “demands very cautious and wise handling”, attorney-general George Savvides said on Monday, calling on MPs to be “particularly careful” in their decisions.
Savvides presented the legal service’s budget for 2026 to the House finance committee, with €31 million expenditure to cover the needs of the Law Office, the law commissioner and the independent authority investigating complaints against the police.
Referring to 2025, Savvides said that by the end of the year 95 per cent of the budget will have been spent, compared to 90 per cent in 2024.
Savvides told MPs that the Law Office had completed a substantive bulk of work, including issuing opinions, legislative control, arbitration, criminal prosecution and sanctions.
Presenting data for 2024, Savvides said there had been five convictions of individuals for corruption and 14 cases of corruption in sports. In 2025, six new investigations were initiated and various cases of corruption were promoted, including local and other authorities.
Regarding the investment programme, 26 individuals and legal entities are currently being prosecuted for corruption, while investigations are underway for other cases, he said.
Furthermore, in 2024 the unit for combating money laundering managed to increase the recovery of funds by 62 per cent compared to 2023, Savvides said.
He added that 132 cases of financial data were forwarded to the police for investigation, 129 police requests for support were answered, information was exchanged with authorities abroad in 653 cases on request and 134 without a request, and assets worth over €54 million were seized.
Savvides said “data for 2025 will be ready towards the end of the year.”
Ahead of Cyprus assuming the EU rotating presidency in the first half of 2026, the Law Office has been making preparations, particularly regarding bodies employees will be presiding over, such as the Eurojust consultative forum, EU council legal affairs workgroups, the EU court, FREMP (Working Party on Fundamental Rights, Citizens Rights and Free Movement of Persons), COJUR on international public law and COMAR on the Law of the Sea.
“From the information we have received to date, the workgroups the Law Office will be presiding over are 15 in total,” Savvides said.
The attorney-general added that a new system for recording revenue and expenditure allowed for the more efficient collection of dues, while the digitalisation of the Law Office, as part of reforms, was proceeding with about 85,000 dossiers and 7 million images already uploaded to the historical archives.
Savvides also referred to Law Office staffing, saying that seven vacancies were filled in 2025 and 135 since 2020, while its academy was promoting continuous and life-long training.
Concluding his presentation, Savvides touched upon the building housing the Law Office, saying it was “a very severe problem”.
“Despite the fact that the finance ministry has included the amount of €150,000 in the 2026 budget for the relaunching of the competition after its sudden cancellation in 2023, the executive power must give priority to the implementation of the project, since the building the headquarters of our service are housed in has no further prospects,” he said.
