The Appeals Court has ruled in favour of the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) in a case concerning the non-retroactive payment of salary increments to two of its employees, overturning an earlier judgment by the Administrative Court.

The decision, delivered on July 10, 2025, upheld the legality of a disputed administrative decision made by the CBC in 2017, which denied retroactive salary adjustments tied to the employees’ acquisition of university degrees and their reclassification under a special pay scale.

The original dispute concerned the employees’ claim that the increments should have been applied retroactively from January 1, 2017.

However, they were instead granted the increase from July 1, 2017, without any backdated pay.

In her decision not to grant retroactive pay, the then-governor of the Central Bank had adopted the recommendation of the personnel committee, which had advised against the backdated application of the pay adjustments.

In 2021, the Administrative Court had annulled the Central Bank’s 2017 decision, finding that both the personnel committee and the governor had erred in fact and in law due to an insufficient investigation.

The court also found the committee’s reasoning lacking, describing the decision as inadequately justified.

However, the Appeals Court has rejected this conclusion.

It found that the two employees were fully aware that they would not receive retroactive increments from January 1, 2017, by the time their July salary was paid on July 26, 2017.

This was confirmed by letters they sent to the human resources department just days later.

Accordingly, the Appeals Court ruled that their administrative appeal, filed in November 2017, was submitted after the legal deadline had expired.

This finding led the court to accept the central bank’s primary ground for appeal.

As a result, the Appeals Court declared the CBC’s appeal successful, set aside the Administrative Court’s decision, and confirmed the legality of the original administrative act.

The court also awarded the CBC total legal costs of €4,000, to be paid by the respondents.