Cyprus-Forum.com

[paliometoxo]

Ankara to answer for violation of Greek property rights in Turkey


By Philippos Stylianou


APART from the usurped properties of Greek Cypriot refugees in the part of Cyprus occupied by its army, Turkey now has to answer before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for the violation of Greek property rights in Istanbul.

The Strasbourg-based ECHR has recently reviewed an individual application filed in 2002 by two brothers, who have been denied their family inheritance in Istanbul because they are Greek citizens and Christian Orthodox.

According to one of their lawyers, Achilleas Demetriades, known from the landmark Titina Loizidou case, the Court has decided that the case is a serious one and worth considering and has therefore asked the respondent government of Turkey to submit its observations by the middle of September.

"When this happens, the applicants will be afforded the opportunity to give their comments and submit their claim for the damages they sustained," Demetriades said.

He added: "The importance of the case is huge, as a successful outcome would open the way for thousands of Greeks originating from Turkey but who do not have Turkish nationality to claim the property rightfully left them by their forefathers."

Demetriades is appearing for the brothers Ioannis and Evangelos Fokas together with lawyer D. Geldis, who is practicing in Katerini, Greece. The applicants’ property consists of three buildings in Istanbul, one of them an apartment block, as well as income from rents, deposits and valuable documents and deeds.

Transferred

The two brothers aged 61 and 58 inherited the property from their sister Polyxeni Pistika – Foka, who was adopted in 1954 at the age of 11 by the couple Apostolos and Elisavet Pistika, both Turkish nationals of Greek origin. The adoption was made in accordance with the decisions of both the Greek and Turkish courts.

Following the death of her adopted parents, their property was transferred to Polyxeni by way of inheritance in July 1987 by order of the Istanbul 3rd Civil Court. A few years later, in 1991, Polyxeni Pistika (Foka) was admitted to the psychiatric department of the Balikli Rum (Greek) hospital in Zeytinburu and the authorities appointed a guardian for her affairs, despite efforts by her brother Ioannis to appoint a guardian of his choice.

In 1997 the Turkish authorities proceeded to annul the 1987 inheritance order for Polyxeni under a 1964 Legislative Order, according to which a natural person holding Greek nationality has no right to inherit in Turkey. They also said that they could do this on grounds of reciprocity because the Greek government applied similar provisions to persons of Turkish origin living in Greece. The annulment was confirmed by the Court of Cassation the next year and Polyxeni was deprived of all her property and income and remained in hospital without resources until her death in April 2000.

Assist

In September 2000 her brothers filed a petition with the Beyoglu Magistrates’ Court for a certificate of inheritance. The Court, once again invoking the reciprocity grounds, dismissed their petition in regard to the immovable property, accepting it only for the movable assets. Polyxenis’ brothers repeatedly appealed the negative decision unsuccessfully.

Commenting on the reciprocity argument used by the Turkish side, Achilleas Demetriades said: "The Turkish argument that this should be allowed in view of a similar practice in Greece is not simply valid, because two wrongs don’t make a right."

He expressed the hope that this would not prevent the Greek Government from exercising its right under the European Convention on Human Rights of participating in the process before the ECHR, in order to assist the applicants who are Greek citizens.


artical can be found here:

http://www.cyprusweekly.com.cy/default. ... wsID=304_6

[humanist]

Turkey will manage to get away again, because what iis needed for the international arena to begin action for her to obey international law. Turkey is found guilty of occupation of Cyprus. 33 years later still going about it. The only way Turkey will obey findings in relation to this, is for the international arena to slap Turkey with either economic embargoes or take Tukey to war. To assist in the implementation of Democracy within the Island of Cyprus. Not about to happen is it?

[zan]

Commenting on the reciprocity argument used by the Turkish side, Achilleas Demetriades said: "The Turkish argument that this should be allowed in view of a similar practice in Greece is not simply valid, because two wrongs don’t make a right."

So you go along with this line of thought then.


You are just crooks calling others crooks

[Pyrpolizer]

What do you mean you? Are we Greece here? If there are similar cases in Greece against Turks then either the Greek state should rectify or get sued at ECHR.

@Paliometoxo,

Turkey will be in huge trouble in her EU road imo. while the above case is a bit complicated there are almost 200,000 Greeks who were deported during the 1955 progrom and their properties confiscated....

[paliometoxo]

why is turkey allowed to ignore the laws?

[zan]

What do you mean you? Are we Greece here? If there are similar cases in Greece against Turks then either the Greek state should rectify or get sued at ECHR.

@Paliometoxo,

Turkey will be in huge trouble in her EU road imo. while the above case is a bit complicated there are almost 200,000 Greeks who were deported during the 1955 progrom and their properties confiscated....

Next time you hear the Greek national anthem being played at one of your sporting events you can ask yourself the same question...

[paliometoxo]

what anthem do they play in the north? do they speak the same dialect of turkish as they do in turkey?

[CopperLine]

I read the linked article and it doesn't really add much crucial detail. So Paliometoxo, there's nothing in the article that suggests that Turkey is being allowed to ignore the law. On the contrary, the very fact that the ECHR seems to be considering the case means that Turkey is being tested in relation to law.

Without doing much further investigation, I don't know what the basis of the case is but generally speaking there are two broad reasons how cases can be brought before the ECHR. The first is that there has been a failure, frustration or in some other sense improper application of the domestic law, and so plaintiffs can 'appeal' to the ECHR if the state in question is a signatory to the ECHR convention. Very often these kinds of cases are so-called 'private' cases taken by citizens of ECHR member states. Thus for example Turkish citizens can take cases to the ECHR against Turkey, Cypriot citizens can take cases to the ECHR against Cyprus (RoC but not TRNC since TRNC is not a signatory). The Fokas case seems to be one of these. One of the early cases, post Protocol 11 reform of the ECHR, in 1999 was a Cypriot (Larkos) v Cyprus

The second broad set of cases are those taken by states against other state. So for example there is a case pending before the Grand Chamber, Cyprus v. Turkey, another one is Netherlands v UK. And most often these are cases where one party claims that the other party has failed to fulfil some international legal obligation vis the plaintiff.

On the surface of it the Fokas case seems to be a claim that the Turkish courts wrongly, perhaps arbitrarily, rejected or failed to consider or failed to apply the pertinent law or procedure. Or perhaps the court came to a 'perverse judgement'. If this was the claim then the Fakos's are basically saying Turkish law is the right law within which the case should have been considered but that the Turkish courts didn't apply the law properly or fairly. If that's the case then they'll, in short hand, be trying to get the ECHR to confirm that Turkish courts misapplied the law. The important thing to recognise is that such kinds of actions are going on at both domestic level and in the ECHR and other international courts all of the time. One shouldn't over-interpret and perhaps come to some conspiratorial or nefarious conclusion just because this is a Greek case against Turkey.

Having said that there is something very interesting about the apparent argument given earlier by Turkey that, if I've understood correctly, there was a reciprocal agreement with Greece regarding Greek-Turkish/Turkish-Greek property questions. If such a deal was actually struck between these two states then the Fakos brothers might also have a case against Greece.

The 'two wrongs don't make a right' argument might not be a very good legal one. It might have been - it happens a lot in international agreements - that two states agree to an unequal, assymetrical agreement enshrined in law. For example, X can extradite citizens of country Y, but Y can't extradite from country X. (Somewhat at a tangent, when you think about it the TRNC is 'not recognised de jure but still recognised de facto' precisely on a massive assymetry and inequality under international law).

If you want information on the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights go to http://www.echr.coe.int/ECHR

In sum, on the basis of this case I really don't think that 'Turkey is allowed to ignore the law' as you suggest, Paliometoxo. This is evidence, if anything, suggests that Turkey is being obliged to look again at the law (in this case it seems, its own application of its own domestic law).

Finally, just a quick reply to Humanist : there is no way that any signatory to the ECHR is going to go to war with another signatory to enforce any judgement. Apart from the fact that that itself would be illegal under international law, it would also be a flagrant violation of the ECHR mechanism itself. There have been many problems of enforcing ECHR judgements to be sure, but the rush to war is not going to help.

[Kifeas]

CopperLine,

The 'two wrongs don't make a right' argument might not be a very good legal one. It might have been - it happens a lot in international agreements - that two states agree to an unequal, assymetrical agreement enshrined in law. For example, X can extradite citizens of country Y, but Y can't extradite from country X. (Somewhat at a tangent, when you think about it the TRNC is 'not recognised de jure but still recognised de facto' precisely on a massive assymetry and inequality under international law).

Care explain what do you mean with the above?

As far as I know, "TRNC" is neither de jure, nor de facto recognised by any international organisation. UN in its resolutions considers it as a non-existing entity, the EU the same, as well as the Council of Europe and the ECtHR in all the cases they have tried regarding Cyprus. They all regard the areas of Cyprus outside the de facto control of the RoC, as areas under the control of the Turkish military and Turkey.

And what do you mean by: "precisely on a massive asymmetry and inequality under international law?" Do you mean that the "TRNC" should be de jure recognised, so that this "massive asymmetry" ceases to exist? I hope this is not what you imply, but somewhat I have a feeling this is precisely what you are saying!

[paliometoxo]

sure but turkey constnttly ignores the human right laws and being asked to remove all troops from cyprus