4. Protection and Support for Whistleblowers: The Cypriot Experience

The concept of whistleblowing in the legal order and social community of the Republic of Cyprus is mostly influenced by its European dimensions originated from the Council of Europe, the EU and the Council’s Group of the States Against Corruption (GRECO). From a conceptual perspective, in Cyprus there is a considerable protection for internal whistleblowers working mostly in the public sector followed be a weaker protection of whistleblowers of private sector and even weaker protection for external whistleblowers that do not satisfy the employee criterion. The dichotomy of protection between public and private sector seems to be unnecessarily and unjustifiably overlooked. Whistleblowing in Cyprus is mostly connected with bribery and corruption while at the same time the small size, population and closeness of the Cypriot society must be taken into account. From the methodological perspective, there is almost absolute lack of sources in Cyprus regarding whistleblowing. The legal framework lacks a specific legislation offering independent protection to whistleblowers, a choice made by the State as regards the method of compliance with its international and European legal obligations and undertakings. In the case of Cyprus there has been no study or statistics exploring the public or intra-institutional attitude towards whistleblowers.