The 75-day time limit for a recourse to the Administrative Court, what counts as an executory decision, and the steps that follow.
What Can Be Challenged
The jurisdiction is constitutional, and its scope is set out in Article 146.1 of the Constitution. The Administrative Courts have exclusive first instance jurisdiction over any recourse against a decision, act or omission of any organ, authority or person exercising executive or administrative function. Appeal lies to the Administrative Court of Appeal, and in a case a law provides for, to the Supreme Constitutional Court. Article 146.1A leaves the establishment, jurisdiction and powers of those courts to a law, which is the Establishment and Operation of the Administrative Court Law of 2015, Law 131(I)/2015.
Recourse is directed at an executory administrative act, meaning a decision that produces legal effects. Refusals, revocations, conditions attached to a permit, disciplinary decisions and the outcomes of tender procedures can all qualify.
What generally cannot be challenged is a preparatory step, an internal opinion, or a purely informative letter that changes nothing. Identifying which document in a file is the decision is often the first real question in the case.
The 75-Day Deadline Is the Whole Case
Article 146(3) of the Constitution gives 75 days to file a recourse. Time runs from publication of the decision or, where the decision is not published, from the day it came to the knowledge of the person affected.
It is not extended because you were negotiating with the authority, waiting for a reply, or seeking internal reconsideration. Correspondence continuing in parallel does not stop the clock. By the time many people seek advice, the question is no longer whether the decision was lawful but whether anything survives at all.
If you have received a decision you may want to challenge, the date on it matters more than its contents.
Grounds of Review
The court examines whether the authority acted within its powers and followed a lawful and fair procedure. In practice the grounds most often engaged are:
- Lack of competence, where the body taking the decision had no power to take it.
- Breach of an essential procedural requirement, including the right to be heard.
- Failure to give adequate reasons, or reasons that do not support the conclusion.
- Error of law, or a decision based on a misunderstanding of the facts.
- Failure to carry out a due inquiry before deciding.
- Abuse or excess of power, including using a power for a purpose other than the one it was given for.
What is not a ground is disagreement with the merits. The court does not substitute its own view of what the right answer was.
Standing
You need an interest of your own, and it has to be affected now rather than one day. Article 146.2 states the test in eight words that decide most standing arguments: the recourse is brought by any person whose own, existing legitimate interest is directly affected by the decision, the act or the omission, whether as an individual or as a member of a community. Each of the three adjectives does work. The interest must be the applicant's own rather than somebody else's, it must exist now rather than be prospective or already spent, and it must be legitimate rather than merely factual. A general objection, or an interest shared with the public at large, is not enough.
For companies and associations, the question of whose interest is affected, and whether the right entity is bringing the recourse, needs to be settled before filing rather than argued afterwards.
What the Court Can Do
Article 146.4 gives the court four outcomes and no others. It may confirm the decision, act or omission wholly or partly; declare the decision or act wholly or partly null and void and of no effect; declare the omission wholly or partly void and that everything omitted ought to have been performed; or modify the decision or act wholly or partly, as a law provides.
The fourth is confined, and the confinement is on the face of the Article. Modification is available only where the decision concerns a tax matter, or is a decision in an international protection procedure under European Union law, or concerns any other matter a law provides for. Outside those cases the court does not substitute a decision, which is why annulment is the ordinary outcome.
Annulment removes the decision and, as a rule, returns the matter to the authority to decide again, lawfully this time. That distinction matters commercially. Annulment does not automatically produce the permit, the licence or the contract you wanted. It produces a fresh decision, which may in principle be adverse again for different and lawful reasons.
Compliance, and the damages that follow annulment
A judgment on a recourse is not advisory. Under Article 146.5 the decision binds every court, organ and authority in the Republic, and the organs, authorities or persons concerned are obliged to comply actively with it. Active compliance is a term of art: it is not enough to refrain from acting on the annulled decision, the authority has to take the matter up again and deal with it.
Article 146.5A supplies the sanction. The court that gave the decision has jurisdiction, as a law provides, to examine and decide whether there has been active compliance with it, and may impose sanctions on a party that has not complied. An authority that lets an annulled file sit is answerable to the same court that annulled it.
Article 146.6 is the money. A person harmed by a decision, act or omission declared void under the Article is entitled, where the organ, authority or person concerned has not satisfied their claim, to pursue damages or other relief in court, so that just and reasonable damages determined by the court are awarded, or such other just and reasonable relief as the court has power to give. Annulment first, then the claim: the second does not run without the first.
If a permit or a tender decision has gone against you, tell us the date on it, whether it was published, and the date it reached you, at office@kleanthousplatis.com, or the enquiry form. We reply within one business day.
What Law 131(I)/2015 adds to the Article
A single judge hears the case, but it can be lifted to the full bench. Section 11(1) gives the President and each judge the powers the Constitution, this Law and any other law confer, and its proviso allows a case to be sent to the full bench on the suggestion of the President or of the judge before whom it is pending.
Section 11(2) is where a tax dispute parts company with everything else. Subject to Article 146, on a decision or act concerning a tax dispute the court reviews the legality and the correctness of it, and may confirm it wholly or partly, or annul and modify it wholly or partly. Everywhere else the court reviews legality alone.
Section 11(4) then fences the modification power in three ways. Paragraph (a) allows modification where the administrative organ, exercising a bound competence, made a wrong assessment of the relevant facts, and adds two provisos: the modification cannot go beyond the reliefs sought in the recourse, and the court cannot modify to the applicant's detriment. Paragraph (b) deals with a recourse for the omission of a due act: if the recourse succeeds the matter goes back to the organ to perform the act, and the court has no power to review the correctness of the omission before the organ has decided and issued an act. Paragraph (c) lists the annulments after which the court does not review correctness at all: lack of competence, unlawful constitution or composition of the organ, breach of an essential formality, or failure by the organ to exercise its discretion. In those cases the administration is called to cure the reason for the annulment.
Section 11A(1) is the one provision that suspends anything automatically. Filing a recourse against a deportation order, a return decision or a removal decision made under the Aliens and Immigration Law suspends the act until the recourse is heard, provided the annulment application pleads that the act is incompatible with the principle of non refoulement under an international convention, European Union law or Cyprus law, or that it breaches the Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights the section names. Outside that provision, filing a recourse suspends nothing, and an applicant who needs the decision held has to apply for it.
Public Tenders
Procurement is the area where these principles bite hardest, because the rules are detailed and the deadlines are tighter still. Challenges may concern the terms of the tender documents, the evaluation, the award decision, or the exclusion of a bidder.
Advice before submitting a bid is usually worth more than advice after the award, because most of what can go wrong is fixed by the tender terms.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to challenge an administrative decision?
75 days under Article 146(3) of the Constitution, running from publication of the decision or, where it is not published, from when it came to your knowledge. Because it is measured from a specific date and cannot be extended by correspondence, advice should be taken immediately on receiving the decision.
What is judicial review?
It is the court's examination of whether a public authority acted within its powers and followed lawful and fair procedures, focusing on the decision-making process rather than disagreement with the outcome.
If I win, do I get the permit?
Not automatically. Annulment usually sends the matter back to the authority to decide again, correctly.
Related Reading
Where the object is to see the file rather than to overturn the decision, the request route and its thirty day deadline are set out in getting documents out of a Cyprus public authority.
Public & Administrative Law in Cyprus
Litigation & Arbitration Lawyers in Cyprus
By Klitos Platis, Advocate. Klitos advises on litigation, corporate and commercial law, real estate, construction and energy at Kleanthous & Platis LLC in Nicosia.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws and their application can change, and individual circumstances differ. For advice on your own matter, contact Klitos Platis at klitos@kleanthousplatis.com or telephone +357 22 680 330.
Klitos Platis
Advocate, Partner
Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia · Published 28 January 2026
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