MPs decided on Thursday to postpone by a week a vote on whether to accept or reject the president’s referral of a law concerning an increase in the MOT fees for certain types of vehicles.

The matter was discussed at the House transport committee, where it became apparent that the president’s referral would likely be accepted.

The MOT is the mandatory roadworthiness inspection.

Recently the House had passed a government bill providing for an increase in the MOT fees for two types of vehicles – M1 and N1.

M1 are passenger cars with up to eight seats, and N1 are trucks with a gross weight of up to 3.5 tonnes.

Their MOT fees are to be increased from €35 to €43 at private technical inspectors, and from €40 to €46 at public (governmental) technical inspectors.

The fees in question had remained unchanged since 2007.

The text of the bill also said that MOT fees would be revised “at regular intervals”.

But in passing the legislation, MPs had amended it, replacing the regular intervals with “every eight years”.

Because of this change, President Nikos Christodoulides refused to sign off on the law and sent it back to parliament, asking that the “every eight years” be stricken.

The president argued that parliament does not have the authority to force the executive branch of government to carry out administrative acts or specify the timeframe for such administrative acts.

MPs had been set to vote on Thursday on whether to accept or reject the president’s referral.

But they decided to postpone the vote to next week.

Going by remarks from MPs at the House transport committee, it looks likely that they will accept the president’s referral – meaning the text of the bill will revert to its original version.