Cypriot lawyer Stephanie Laulhe-Shaelou was on Friday appointed as one of the 11 advocates-general to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), replacing the outgoing Nicholas Emiliou.

She will serve in the post until October 6 next year, completing the remainder of Emiliou’s term, after he was initially appointed to the role for a six-year period in October 2021.

He left the role in January after he was elected as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights. There, he will serve a nine-year term, expiring in 2035.

Laulhe-Shaelou is the head of the University of Central Lancashire’s Cyprus’ campus’ law school, and is also an invited rule of law expert at the United Nations institute for training and research

In addition to the appointment of Laulhe-Shaelou, the European Council also announced on Friday that ECJ president Koen Lenaerts of Belgium will be reappointed as an ECJ judge for another six-year term, beginning in October next year and lasting until October 2033.

Lenaerts has served on the ECJ since 2003, and was vice president of the court between 2012 and 2015, before becoming president in 2015, and remaining in post ever since.

He succeeded Vasilios Skouris in the role, with Skouris having returned to prominence in recent weeks after having been named by the Cypriot government as one of the five criminal investigators it had appointed to examine the findings reached by the anti-corruption authority during its own probe into the book, Mafia State.

The book concluded that, among other things, that former Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades may be criminally liable for abuse of power.

Skouris had become well known in Cyprus during his term as president of the ECJ when bought a plot of land near the Kyrenia district village of Lapithos in 2002 and built a villa on it.

However, when the first crossing points between the island’s two sides opened the following year, the land’s pre-1974 owner Meletios Apostolides discovered that a villa had been built on his land and as such took the case to the Republic of Cyprus’ Nicosia district court.

In 2004, the Nicosia district court ordered the Orams to demolish the villa, give Apostolides the land, and pay him damages. They appealed the decision at the Cypriot supreme court and lost.

Given that the UK was still a member of the EU at the time, Apostolides used EU regulations to have the Cypriot ruling apply against the Orams couple’s assets in the UK, with the Orams then successfully appealing the decision at the UK’s high court of justice.

Apostolides then appealed that decision at the court of appeal, which referred the case to the ECJ, which, led by Skouris, ruled in his favour in 2009.

After the ruling, Skouris’ neutrality was called into question, given that he had been awarded the Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III – the highest honour the Republic of Cyprus can bestow – by Tassos Papadopoulos in 2006.