3 C.L.R. 1989 March4 jMALACHTOS. J,] INTHE MATTEROF ARTICLH 146 ΟΓ THE CONSTITUTION THE BOARD OFTHEPANCYPRIAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION, f Applicant, THE DIRECTOR-GENERAI.OFTHE MINISTRY OFHEALTH, Respondent. (Case No. 131/SS) ConstitutionalLaw— Requestsorcomplaints to competentpublicauthority — Constitution.Art. 29— Requestaddressedto the Director-General of Ministry, who transmittedit to the competent organ — i\o question of omission ιο replyarises m farusthe Directoris concerned. 5 Abatement of Recourse for annulment — Omission to reply to arequest addressedto publicauthority— Constitution. Art. 29 — Replyfollowing the filingof the Recourse — Recourse abated. 10 15 20 The applicants addressed a request tothe respondent Director-Genera! of the Ministry ol" Health,who. in the light of the nature of the request. transmitted it to theorgan concerned,i.e.the pharmaceutical services. As the applicants did not receive areply within the period limited by Art. 29 of the Constitution,they filed theprcseni recourse. Following the filing of the recourse, the pharmaceutical services replied to the applicants. The grounds on which the Court dismissed the present recourse appears sufficiently in the hereinabove Headnotes. Recourse dismissed. :\'o orderas to costs. 319 Pane.Pharm.Ass.v. Dir.-Gen.Min.of Health
(1989)Casesreferredto: Xenophontos v.Republic,2R.S.CC. 89, Siai'tacoiasv. Republic(19S6)3C.LR. 1268, 5 Karaliotas v. Republic
(1985)3C.LR.501, Antoniou v.Nicosia Municipality
(1980)3C.LR.
- 10 Recourse. Recourse against the omission of the respondent to reply to applicant's letter of the 14th September.
- 15 Ch.loannides, Chairman ofthe Applicant Board. A. Vladimirou, Counsel of the Republic B, for the Respondent. 20 Cur. adv.vult. MALACHTOS, J. read the following judgment. By the present recourse the applicant Board seeks,asstated therein, a declaration of the Court that the omission of the respondent to 25 replyto theletterof theapplicant Boardof 14.9.87ought not to have made and that whatever has been omitted ought to have been performed. The relevant facts of thecase are asfollows:- 30 On 14.9.87 the applicant Board wrote to the respondent Director-General suggesting, inter alia, for the purpose of assisting the candidates taking the examinations of Forensic Pharmacy, that the Department of Pharmaceutical Services 35 should,
(1)prepare a list of the whole of the examination syllabus, that is the Laws, Regulations. Orders and all their amendments;
(2)prepare copies of alltheexamination papers of Forensic 320 40 3 C.L.R. Pane.Pharm.Ass.v. Dir.-Gen. Min.of Health Malachtos,J. Pharmacy, of all previous years which should be made available to all candidates free of charge or upon payment, and 5
(3)consolidate all the Pharmacy legislation which should be made available to all candidates free of charge or upon payment This letter was forwarded by the respondent to the 10 Department ofPharmaceutical Serviceson25987for itsviews A reminder wassent to the respondent by the applicant on 6 1187 15 Having received no reply, the applicant Board filed the present recourse on 15 288, challenging the omission of the respondent toreplytotheirrequest asbeingcontraryto Article 29of the Constitution. This Article readsas follows 20 "1 Every person has the right individually complaints or jointly with others to address wntten requests or complaints to any competent public authority and to have them attended to and decided expeditiously; an immediate notice of any such decision taken duly reasoned shall be given to the person 25 making the request or complaint and in any event within a period not exceeding thirty days 2 Where any interested person is aggrieved by any such decision or where no such decision is notified to such person 30 within the penod specified in paragraph 1of this Article, such person mayhaverecoursetoacompetent courtinthematterof such request or complaint" On the same day, however, the Director of Pharmaceutical 35 Services submitted to the respondent Director-General his views,comments and suggestions in respect of the letter of the applicant Board This reply was forwarded to the applicant by the respondent on 24288 On 18488 the Chairman of the applicant Board replied to the respondent expressing his 40 disagreement Looking into the correspondence exchanged between the 321 Malachtos, J. Pane. Pharm. Ass.v. Dir.-Gen. Min. of Health
(1989)parties,it isobvious that the matterwasdealt withbythe organ concerned i.e.thePharmaceutical Servicestowhichtheletterof the applicant Association had been properly forwarded by the respondent, who.assuming hehad any dutyto doso,cannot be considered to have been liable of any omission. The applicant 5 cannot, therefore, pursue the recourse under Article 29 of the Constitution. Moreover, no material detriment has been established as a result of any failure to reply within the 30days time limit on the assumption, of course, that such reply could have been given within the aforesaid period (see Charilaos 10 Xenophontos v.The Republic, 2 R.S.C.C.89atp.93). Furthermore, once a replywasgiven, even ifsuch reply was after the filing of the recourse, the present recourse had been abated and cannot be pursued any further for lack of legitimate 15 interest which, assuming the applicant had any. must exist not only when filing the recourse, but also at the time of hearing. (See Siaftacolas v.The Republic (19S6)3 C.L.R. 1268at 12801281: Tsatsos Recourse for Annulment 3rd edition, p.51: Karaliotas v. The Republic (19S5) 3 C.L.R. 501 at 507; and 20 Antoniou v. Nicosia Municipality (19S6) 3 C.L.R. 2640 at 2643). For the above reasons, this recourse fails and is hereby dismissed. 25 On the question of costs Imake no order. Recourse dismissed. No orderas to costs. 30 322