Cyprus-Forum.com

[turkcyp]

Another aspect is that I think (correct me if I am wrong) the US supreme court could overule state law. In the Annan plan this is severly restricted as well as being chaired by foreign judges!

That is correct. Supreme court can overrule states law but only if the state law is against the constitution of USA. Not when the state law is different than the Federal law.

Realize coupe of things. In USA there are 3 levels of government and 4 levels of law.

Goverments: Federal, State, Local
Laws: Constitution, Federal, State, and Local

Every law in the country has to obey the constitution. Local laws in the country has to obey the state laws. But there is no hierarchy between state laws and federal laws. The simply have separate jurisdictions over separate subject. A state can not make laws relating for example immigration law in USA. This right is completely vested in Federal government. If a state tries to do that, Supreme court stops them saying you can not have a law like that because that jurisdiction belongs to Federal government. On the other hand, Federal government can not make a law saying states can not let gay’s marry, or can not legalize marijuana etc. etc. These are completely states jurisdictions. If they do say that, then state applies to supreme court and supreme court nullifies the federal law, saying that that is states’ jurisdiction.

You got to realize something. US constitution is a very short document, not like Annan Plan hundreds and hundreds of pages. It basically clarifies the rights of states, each federal government institution. But does not go into detail in telling for example this is the election law that each state has to have like Annan Plan.

Take care,

[Alexandros Lordos]

I do not remember exactly but "was not the case that teh restrictions were being abolished after 18 years"...

Well, yes, the residence restriction to be was abolished after 18 years, but then replaced with a guideline restriction that GCs can never be more than one third of the TC state.

It may give states more rights than GCS want, but defiently less rights than TCS want.

To be honest, my friend, I believe that there is an optimal distribution of responsibilities that will make life good for everyone, GC and TC. It is not necessarily a case of finding the compromise between two opposing views.

For instance, I am a firm believer in giving the Federal State some responsibilities over Education, such as bicommunal schools, schools for GCs in the north and schools for TCs in the south. Something like this would be good for everyone. At the same time, we need to keep the Federal State and its bulky decision making apparatus unhampered with more mundane affairs, eg Health Care, because we would not wish to end up with needless administrative deadlocks.

I think a good guideline for deciding which responsibilities to give to the Federal State and which to the constituent state is: Is this matter going to be crucially important to GCs living in the north and TCs living in the south, and is there danger that such people will be discriminated against by the constituent state and treated like a minority? If this is the case, then the matter at hand should fall under Federal oversight, in which GCs and TCs co-decide. If not, then it can remain with the constituent state, where decision making is faster and simpler.

[Alexandros Lordos]

Another aspect is that I think (correct me if I am wrong) the US supreme court could overule state law. In the Annan plan this is severly restricted as well as being chaired by foreign judges!

That is correct. Supreme court can overrule states law but only if the state law is against the constitution of USA. Not when the state law is different than the Federal law.

So, what about the Annan Plan? Is mikkie2 correct in saying that the Supreme Court of the Annan Plan was severely restricted? If a constituent state passed a law that was against the constitution could the Supreme Court overrule it, or not?

[turkcyp]

So, what about the Annan Plan? Is mikkie2 correct in saying that the Supreme Court of the Annan Plan was severely restricted? If a constituent state passed a law that was against the constitution could the Supreme Court overrule it, or not?

Not it was not restricted at all. Supreme court can still decide if a state law is against constitution, or if a state law stepped outside its jurisdiction which is stated in the constitution.

But I get the feeling that Mikkie2 was trying to say that Supreme court is restricted because there would be a foreigner in the court deciding on Cyprus local issues.

If I got him wrong, may be he can clarify with examples what he means by saying Supreme court can not force the constitution. Supreme court are not supposed to force federal law over state laws anyway, as that is not necessary because any state law that is outside its jurisdiction and overstepping in the federal government jurisdiction would be found invalid by the Supreme court anyway.

I guess he has to clarify his position on the Supreme Court so I can comment on that more...

Nice discussion by the way and it reminds me a topic I have opened a while ago about the applicability of USA system to Cyprus. (Could not find the topic though. )

Take care,

[Piratis]

The major difference between Annan Plan and USA system was the fact that there was a temporary settlement restriction on state residents in the other state.

It was not temporary (not with full political rights at least).
And this is not just major, it is huge difference because it changes the whole federal system from geographic separation as is the case in all other federations, to a racial discrimination that exists nowhere else. This is why if this major derogation is accepted, other things should be put in place in order to minimize the harm that such derogation would cause to democracy and human rights.

[insan]

Insan, could you explain what you mean by "starting with confederation"? How exactly do you understand the meaning of "confederation" in this context? And how would it "gradually evolve to a Federation and then to a Unitary State"? Would this evolution be automatic after a certain number of years, or would we need to renegotiate from scratch?

It all depends upon the social dynamics of two communities, Alexandros. Taking into account the passiveness of our social dynamics and that generally dependant to the ruling and leading elites; actually it all depends upon the reconciliation, rapproachment and sincere relations, collaborations of both sides ruling and leading elites.

Like Us started as a conferation and then evolved to a federation; Cyprus might go in that direction and first evolve to a federation and then due to its small size might be evolved to a unitary state.

[Alexandros Lordos]

Like US started as a conferation and then evolved to a federation

Oops, bad example ... the US "evolved" through a civil war

[insan]

Oops, bad example ... the US "evolved" through a civil war

But is a civil war really necessary to improve a confederation to get it evolved to a federation. Hypothetically, our starting point is that confederation or a hybrid of confederation/federation model is most secure and feasible for us under the circumstances which I suppose, exist. So in the beginning we acknowledge that we are starting from a point which we considered would be the most secure and feasible for a better future but "we" also should acknowledge and cleraly put it forth that our aim is to improve and evolve it to a federation.


What is your opinions concerning the post-solution Cyprus, Alexandros?