Cyprus-Forum.com

[CopperLine]

Pyropoliser,
The problem I have with this story, as I mentioned, is that there's absolutely nothing that I can find about it on the ECHR website, so all we've got to gone in is the story posted by Halil. I'm not doubting his integrity in posting the story, I just can't see that there's any basis for it from wherever he got it originally.

For example, it seems very odd to me that RoC would object on the grounds that the "two TRNC judges .... could not be fair and objective because of the oaths they had taken to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." [my emphasis] This seems an extraordinarily weak argument to make - after all the RoC could have just said that if the judges were sitting on property cases they would have a conflict of interests - a much more powerful argument. In principle if one of these judges was sitting on cases about education of Laplanders they'd be as qualified as any other judge !

If the judges were being put forward as TRNC citizens, representing the TRNC, then the objections are obvious (TRNC not recognised, illegal, etc, etc). But judges in the ECHR do not represent their country of citizenship, they are simply from a country (the proviso being that they do not sit in cases involving claimants or respondents of their own state. The Grand Chamber is different again). But if these candidates were qualified people, of high standing, experience, etc and were, let's say proposed by Turkey, then their nominal citizenship might not matter.

Anyway what does the action of Turkey tell you as a legal expert regarding the status of the occupied areas?

I don't actually understand your question : are you asking this in relation to the issue of these supposed ECHR judges ? The impact of occupation on their suitability, qualification, acceptability, eligibility to the ECHR ? If that's what you mean I don't necessarily see any connection because, as you'll see from the ECHR business, there are dozens of cases in which Turkey is named as the respondent regarding Turks whose human rights have been alleged to have been violated. Similarly the Turkish nominated judge sits on dozens of cases dealing with alleged violations from around the ECHR convention members. The important point to bear in mind is that the ECHR judges necessarily come from some ECHR member or other but they are not ECHR judges to reflect or represent national interests or policies. But as I said, I may have missed the point of the association you were making.

[CopperLine]

Further to my earlier post, I've done a search of all British newspapers, all the major law databases, and there is no mention at all of this story. Where on earth has it been retrieved from ? Halil, can you help ?

[humanist]

Thanks copperline, that was an interesting point of view. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it and lookin from another perspective.

[halil]

Further to my earlier post, I've done a search of all British newspapers, all the major law databases, and there is no mention at all of this story. Where on earth has it been retrieved from ? Halil, can you help ?

Source Anatolian news agency.
as i said before why don't u try to ask ROC adminstration if they applied or not applied.

[Bananiot]

The issue was put to President Papadopoulos last night at his televised meeting with the press. We had a duty to object, he said. This is from "Politis".

http://www.politis-news.com/cgibin/hweb ... V=articles

Achilleas Demetriades (the Loizidou Lawyer) commented on this and he said that when an objection is overruled things cannot be positive. He also sited a political implication to the decision.

[Pyrpolizer]

Pyropoliser,
The problem I have with this story, as I mentioned, is that there's absolutely nothing that I can find about it on the ECHR website, so all we've got to gone in is the story posted by Halil. I'm not doubting his integrity in posting the story, I just can't see that there's any basis for it from wherever he got it originally.

For example, it seems very odd to me that RoC would object on the grounds that the "two TRNC judges .... could not be fair and objective because of the oaths they had taken to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." [my emphasis] This seems an extraordinarily weak argument to make - after all the RoC could have just said that if the judges were sitting on property cases they would have a conflict of interests - a much more powerful argument. In principle if one of these judges was sitting on cases about education of Laplanders they'd be as qualified as any other judge !

If the judges were being put forward as TRNC citizens, representing the TRNC, then the objections are obvious (TRNC not recognised, illegal, etc, etc). But judges in the ECHR do not represent their country of citizenship, they are simply from a country (the proviso being that they do not sit in cases involving claimants or respondents of their own state. The Grand Chamber is different again). But if these candidates were qualified people, of high standing, experience, etc and were, let's say proposed by Turkey, then their nominal citizenship might not matter.

The newspapers say one of the 2 will be placed in the 3rd section (which has 7 judges) and will deal with 38 cases of GCs Vs Turkey on the property issue!!! Well i don't know what legal arguments are required to prove this judge CANNOT BE IMPARTIAL, perhaps you can find some for me...

Furthermore the newspaper say he will be ad-hoc judge. This ad-hoc however involves some 38 cases!!!

I don't actually understand your question : are you asking this in relation to the issue of these supposed ECHR judges ? The impact of occupation on their suitability, qualification, acceptability, eligibility to the ECHR ? If that's what you mean I don't necessarily see any connection because, as you'll see from the ECHR business, there are dozens of cases in which Turkey is named as the respondent regarding Turks whose human rights have been alleged to have been violated. Similarly the Turkish nominated judge sits on dozens of cases dealing with alleged violations from around the ECHR convention members. The important point to bear in mind is that the ECHR judges necessarily come from some ECHR member or other but they are not ECHR judges to reflect or represent national interests or policies. But as I said, I may have missed the point of the association you were making.

No that was not really the point of my question.My point was why among so many thousands eligible mainland Turkish lawyers, Turkey chose 2 judges from the occupied part of Cyprus? Was it to advertise the "trnc" as a state?

[CopperLine]

Pyropolizer,
This, below, is excerpted from the ECHR 'organisation of the court', but see the weblink for the rest of the organisation.

Judges are elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which votes on a shortlist of three candidates put forward by Governments. The term of office is six years, and judges may be re-elected. Their terms of office expire when they reach the age of seventy, although they continue to deal with cases already under their consideration.
Judges sit on the Court in their individual capacity and do not represent any State. They cannot engage in any activity which is incompatible with their independence or impartiality or with the demands of full-time office.

See http://www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/EN/Header/ ... the+Court/

You wrote,

The newspapers say one of the 2 will be placed in the 3rd section (which has 7 judges) and will deal with 38 cases of GCs Vs Turkey on the property issue!!! Well i don't know what legal arguments are required to prove this judge CANNOT BE IMPARTIAL, perhaps you can find some for me...

This is Rule 4 of the Court organisation (you can find the full text at http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/D1 ... fCourt.pdf :

Rule 4
(Incompatible activities)
In accordance with Article 21 § 3 of the Convention, the judges shall not during their
term of office engage in any political or administrative activity or any professional activity
which is incompatible with their independence or impartiality or with the demands of a
full-time office. Each judge shall declare to the President of the Court any additional activity.
In the event of a disagreement between the President and the judge concerned, any question
arising shall be decided by the plenary Court.

Rule 25, para 2 says :

2. Each judge shall be a member of a Section. The composition of the Sections shall be
geographically and gender balanced and shall reflect the different legal systems among the
Contracting Parties.

Rule 28 is the crucial one in this case :

2. A judge may not take part in the consideration of any case if

(a) he or she has a personal interest in the case, including a spousal, parental or other
close family, personal or professional relationship, or a subordinate relationship, with any of
the parties;

(b) he or she has previously acted in the case, whether as the Agent, advocate or
adviser of a party or of a person having an interest in the case, or as a member of another
national or international tribunal or commission of inquiry, or in any other capacity;

(c) he or she, being an ad hoc judge or a former elected judge continuing to sit by
virtue of Rule 26 § 3, engages in any political or administrative activity or any professional
activity which is incompatible with his or her independence or impartiality;

(d) he or she has expressed opinions publicly, through the communications media, in
writing, through his or her public actions or otherwise, that are objectively capable of
adversely affecting his or her impartiality;

(e) for any other reason, his or her independence or impartiality may legitimately be
called into doubt.

And then this is qualified, again crucial in this case, by rule 30 :

1. (a) If the judge elected in respect of a Contracting Party concerned is unable to sit in
the Chamber, withdraws, or is exempted, or if there is none, the President of the Chamber
shall invite that Party to indicate within thirty days whether it wishes to appoint to sit as judge
either another elected judge or an ad hoc judge and, if so, to state at the same time the name
of the person appointed.

(b) The same rule shall apply if the person so appointed is unable to sit or withdraws.

(c) An ad hoc judge shall possess the qualifications required by Article 21 § 1 of the
Convention, must not be unable to sit in the case on any of the grounds referred to in Rule 28
of these Rules, and must be in a position to meet the demands of availability and attendance
provided for in paragraph 5 of this Rule.

To be honest this whole story really puzzles me. Something smells, and it comes from the way that it has been reported. The newspaper articles that I've seen, only published in Turkish and Cypriot newspapers as far as I can find, simply don't chime with how the ECHR works.

A few points that don't ring true :

1. A judge appointed to the ECHR would not know in advance which cases s/he would be hearing. So I don't see how anyone could already know that there were 38 property cases lined up
2. A judge who had either already heard a given case in another capacity, say at the national level, or who had any other cnlfict of interests is simply forbidden from hearing the case. So even if these 'TRNC' judges have been appointed to ECHR they could only hear a case if they had no prior history of, in these alleged cases, Cyprus property cases.
3. The use of ad-hoc judges is a great rarity. To have two come along at the same time and from the same country and both be appointed is just strecthing the bounds of credibility. (I really think that this story has been misreported by people with an axe to grind).
4. The appointment of any judge to the ECHR is by vote of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (composed of 47 state members). It's politically, not just procedurally, highly improbable that Turkey could contrive the election of two unqualified, unsuitable or conflicted judges.

All highly mysterious. And still no announcement from the ECHR

[CopperLine]

And another thing ....
"ECHR rejects Greek CYpriot opposition to TRNC judges" - that's how the story is told BUT

1. What Greek Cypriot opposition is it referring to ? It can't be the Cypriot ECHR judge, Loukis Loukiades, because as a judge he's not representing his country. In any case judges don't do the appointing.
2. Because it is not the ECHR which actually does the appointing, it cannot be the ECHR which is doing the 'rejecting'.
3. The Cypriot government would knows that it cannot directly lobby the ECHR or oppose the ECHRs own constitutional procedure and so wouldn't have 'opposed' the ECHR.
4. Again, the judges might be from northern Cyprus but that does not make them 'TRNC judges'

(I suspect that I might be a forum member just posting to myself !!)

[Pyrpolizer]

cOPPERlINE, I PERSONALLY DO READ YOUR POSTS AND i THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO REPLY.
I totally agree with you, the whole matter puzzles me too.
I 've read the GC newspapers today they are not any clearer either. Here's a translation of the relevant part from Politis newspaper (link provided earlier by Bananiot).
In case you can figure any further from this translation please let us know.
Thank you.

A great number GC cases that are now pending in European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will be examined with the participation of TC judges. And this because the effort of Republic of Cyprus to cancel the nominations (on behalf of Turkey) of the TC judges Metinn Hakki (chairman of "supreme court in the occupied") and Gkionoyl Eronen (also judge in "supreme court") has failed. Concretely, the chairman of Third Department of ECHR, Bostjan Zupancic, informed yesterday morning in writting the involved parts, that after the hearing process (on 6 September) was decided to reject the objection of RoC

….
The decision of Third Department, while it was based on legal criteria and arguments, sure includes also political tinge. And this because ECHR accepts as ad hoc judges of Turkey in GC resorts of "the chief judge'" of the occupied (for cases that involve properties), but also the "judge supreme court" (for the cases of GC missing persons).
……..

The impact of the acceptance of these nominations in legal level with regards to GC resorts does not actually differentiate the facts, since Turkey would in any case have representation in these affairs, either with TC judges, or with Mainland Turkish judges.

[CopperLine]

Pyrpolizer,
Thanks for the translation (and for reading the posts),

In case you can figure any further from this translation please let us know

The other thing that did come to mind following your post is that strategically/politically (assuming the basis story is correct, which is a huge assumption) the sponsors of these nominees would be scoring a massice own goal. Why ?

Because a fundamental human right, guaranteed by the ECHR itself, is a right to a fair trial or tribunal. So the first thing I would do, if I had even the slightest suspicion that a judge presiding over one of my cases might be prejudiced or conflicted, would be to challenge the judge or bench. Presumably the very first thing a GC plaintiff would do on a property case wuld be to challege the composition of the bench. The case wouldn't start until a replacment judge was found.

The GC plaintiffs know this; the RoC knows this; the ECHR knows this, the CoE knows this; the TUrkish govt knows this; the nominated judges know this. So no one in their right mind would try to stitch things up in this way. It is just not credible.

My tentative conclusion so far is this : EITHER the story is basically wrong in fact and interpretation OR these judges have been appointed but they are 'clean' and beyond reproach. At the moment I go with the first assessment.