Cyprus police officers took to the street on Wednesday, following trade Isotita union’s call for a protest over the new police reform which came into effect at the beginning of the new year.

“The law on the police has been violated,” head of Isotita’s police branch Nikos Loizides said, speaking outside Parliament.

Demonstrators gathered outside the House at 9am, where the reform was being discussed by the legal committee, to express their outrage over the amendments.

House President Annita Demetriou assured the protesters that MPs stood by their side “in an effort to have the best result though which will strengthen and reorganise our police force.”

Officers handing over their demands to House president Annita Demetriou

She had been handed a list of demands by the demonstrators.

We will definitely listen to you, she added. “Your chairman [Loizides] is making sure he is informing us personally and institutionally with his interventions, but essentially, you will want suggestions for us to listen to, to be by your side,” she said.

Demetriou said that although the decisions may be a step in the right direction, they could not be made without prior consultation, echoing the union’s criticism that the decision to alter how working weeks for police officers were arranged was ‘unilateral’ and imposed from above.

“It is not possible. And we say that rights must be guaranteed, they must be discussed, we will be here with your just demands, and at the end of the day, we will all have to see how we can ensure the role of the police and of each police officer so that we can protect the public’s sense of security,” she said.

Police chief Themistos Arnaoutis’ outlining of new police working hours had been met with fierce backlash from police unions and the Cyprus Police Association, which argue that the reforms altered daily working schedules and significantly reduce officers’ rest days.

Demonstrators outside the House of Representatives on Wednesday

Referring to the plans as a “violent intensification of work”, the union alleged that the amendments constituted a “a dismantling of decades of achievements” and disregarded the provisions of the police law, mandating the terms of service, hours of duty and days off, which are regulated exclusively by Council of Ministers.

Isotita had previously described Arnaoutis’ decision to reform the officer’s schedule as a “direct, blatant and premeditated attack on the core of the rule of law, on the hierarchy of rules and on the fundamental labor rights of (…) police officers.”

It alleged the police leadership of “usurping legislative power, blatantly violating the principle of the separation of powers, the constitution, international conventions and general principles of administrative law.”

A request for the revocation of the amendments has since been filed with the administrative court.