ABSTRACT
Aptly described as a “colorful plurilegal mosaic” (Symeonides 2003: 442), Cyprus law constitutes a mixed legal system in the traditional sense of the word. Like the better-known members of Vernon Palmer’s (2001b: 7–9) “third legal family,” Cyprus law is built on the twin foundations of common law and continental law, each in control of different legal subjects. 1 It is, however, pretty much a unique mixed legal system in which private law (in most subjects) and criminal law follow the English common law, and public law has a continental orientation. Procedural law is purely common law—a major factor in the mutation of the more continental elements of the legal system.
