Cyprus-Forum.com

[garbitsch]

Those people were holding Greek Property as an exchange for the properties they left in South!!! It was a demand by the Greek Cypriots, not the ECHR to change the members of the commission. And yes, many were forced to resign, and new ones were appointed.

[MicAtCyp]

For your information MicAtCyp those members have been changed.

Good for you.So lets see what happens next time when the ECHR checks the legality of that court. What happened to your "goodbye for ever" by the way?

Those people were holding Greek Property as an exchange for the properties they left in South!!!

On Exchange??? Let me steal your Mercedes and leave my bicycle outside your house then. How about that for an exchange!

It was a demand by the Greek Cypriots, not the ECHR to change the members of the commission

Demand??? So when in a trial I say that not only your court is illegal but on top of it you put the thieves themselves to judge, that means I demanded that you change the judges? That means that by changing the judges your court becomes acceptable acceptable to me? Your irrationality has no limits.

[Viewpoint]

MicAtCyp

What happened to your "goodbye for ever" by the way?

What do you mean?? please clarify..

[MicAtCyp]

Dont you remember what you say in this forum ViewTurrkishFlag??

[Viewpoint]

MicAtCyp happy now???

[MicAtCyp]

MicAtCyp happy now???

Much happier thanks. Get something nice man.The internet is full of pictures...

[turkcyp]

Heloo, good morning! This is a basic law of the pseudo constitution, write it off and your whole system collapses. Public interest is not served by taking ones property and giving it to someone else.Public interest is served by taking your property to make a road to be used by everybody! Alhough such an action will for sure solve the property issue of a solution I am not sure Talat will be so BRAVE to take such an action. It's too risky, but then who knows?

Actually the system does not collapse at all. Because the article 159 part (4) left rooms for the owners to come forward and claim their land. The major problem does not lie at the article 159 but rather on the laws that implements that principle.

Also you have mentioned here the “principle of public interest”. It has nothing to do with the article 159 of the constitution but nevertheless is important in the overall picture. The principle is basically referred as “eminent domain” in law and refers the ability of government to appropriate the property of individual if it serves for the public interest. Of course government is forced to pay just compensation for the property otherwise the whole issue becomes expropriation.

The only disagreement here is what is “public interest”. You can not restrict public interest to only civic projects. There are plenty of examples from USA especially, many of these are actually being contested in Supreme court as abuse of “use of eminent domain” but Supreme court did not rule on them yet. For example Michigan Supreme court had approved of “use of eminent domain” to obtain land and give it to private party to be used for other than civic projects claiming that the other private property can make better use of land and therefore generate more tax revenues. (the question at hand was about a locality obtaining land to be given to GM to make a factory I think).

The idea of settling thousands of refugees MAY be interpreted as “public interest” by the courts, but that is again TO BE decided. But ECHR will be using the following definition for public interest

in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

In my opinion your friend missed the point.Once the ECHR found the court to be inadequate, had no reason to examine any other aspects concerning that court. This does not mean it considers it legal or illegal. It simply did not examine it. The fact that 3 out of 5 of it's members are by themselves using GC properties (which proves the court is not impartial) was not even considered by the ECHR....

You are half right half wrong….

You are right court did not examine the legality of local remedy, in this case, commission. You are actually wrong. The court touched the legality issue a little bit without deciding about it.

Furthermore, the Court recalls the general principle referred to in its judgments in the cases of Loizidou v. Turkey (op. cit., § 45) and Cyprus v. Turkey (op. cit., §§ 89-102) that international law recognises the legitimacy of legal arrangements and transactions in certain situations akin to those existing in the “TRNC” and that the question of the effectiveness of these remedies provided therein had to be considered in the specific circumstances where it arose, on a case-by case basis.

As you can see, the court says that de facto legal arrangements similar to TRNC may be accepted as legal but has to be considered on case-by- case basis.

And after this the decision list some points why the current law can not be accepted as a local remedy as it is not adequate yet.

As regards the application of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention to the facts of the present case, the Court notes at the outset that the compensation offered by Law no. 49/2003 in respect of the purported deprivation of the applicant's property is limited to damages concerning pecuniary loss for immovable property. No provision is made for movable property or non-pecuniary damages. Most importantly, however, the terms of compensation do not allow for the possibility of restitution of the property withheld. Thus, although compensation is foreseen, this cannot in the opinion of the Court be considered as a complete system of redress regulating the basic aspect of the interferences complained of (see, mutatis mutandis, Brumărescu v. Romania (just satisfaction) [GC], no. 28342/95, §§ 19-22, ECHR 2001-I, and Papamichalopoulos and Others v. Greece (Article 50), judgment of 31 October 1995, Series A no. 330-B, pp. 58-60, §§ 34-38 ).

In addition the Court would make the following observations concerning the purported remedy.

Firstly, the Law does not address the applicant's complaints under Article 8 and 14 of the Convention.

Secondly, the Law is vague as to its temporal application, that is, as whether it has retrospective effect concerning applications filed before its enactment and entry into force; it merely refers to the retrospective assessment of the compensation.

Finally, the composition of the compensation commission raises concerns since, in the light of the evidence submitted by the Cypriot Government, the majority of its members are living in houses owned or built on property owned by Greek Cypriots. In this connection, the Court observes that the respondent Government have not disputed the Cypriot Government's arguments on this matter and have not provided any additional information in their written and oral submissions. Further, the Court suggests that an international composition would enhance the commission's standing and credibility.

In view of the above, the Court considers that the compensation-based remedy proposed by the respondent Government cannot fully redress the negation of the applicant's property rights.

The Court confines itself to the above conclusion and does not consider it necessary to address the remainder of the arguments put before it by the parties and the intervening third-party.

Accordingly, the Court concludes that the remedy proposed by the respondent Government in the present case does not satisfy the requirements under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention in that it cannot be regarded as an “effective” or “adequate” means for redressing the applicant's complaints.

As you can see the court even addressed some of the short comings of the commission and even offered suggestions on what can be done to improve it. But refused to decide about the acceptability of this de-facto commission before it is deemed to be “adequate local remedy”.
If the above points are fixed then the court MAY or MAY NOT accept the commission as local remedy. The door is left open for that acceptance. The RoC governments and Arestis’s lawyers arguments about rejecting the legality of the local remedy is not considered at this point. So the court did not said if it is legal or not YET but if the above corrections are made then it probably will have to decide about that.

One interesting thing I have realized in the decision is that ECHR, acknowledges the equality of communities in Cyprus,

Any references to the relative paragraph?

This equality is actually have been raised by Turkish side in the defense, and neither Arestis’s lawyer, nor RoC and nor the court had disputed that.

What Arestis and RoC government had said, although they are equal this does not give them right to separate statehood (namely TRNC). And court seemed to endorse this view.

Quotes from the decision:

Although the respondent Government admit that the texts of the plan they refer to, do not, by reason of their rejection by the Greek Cypriots, have formal binding force, they emphasise that their content reflects the UN Secretary-General's assessment, widely endorsed by the international community, of the fair balance to be struck in the resolution of the Cyprus conflict as well as the irreversible and accepted factual position on the island, particularly the fact that the Turkish-Cypriot people were treated as an independent entity of equal status with the Greek-Cypriot people.

The facts that the plan refers to Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriots and that the parties had equal status in the negotiations do not elevate the “TRNC” to statehood.

According to the Cypriot Government, the UN Secretary General's actions in treating thetwo communities as having equal status did not and could not confer statehood upon the “TRNC”;

Concerning the latter, the Court notes that the Annan Plan would have been a significant development and break-through in inter-communal negotiations had it come into force. Consequently no change has occurred since the adoption of the above-mentioned judgments by the Court which would justify a departure from its conclusions as to Turkey's jurisdiction. In this connection, the Court points out, firstly, that the fact that the two communities were treated as having equal status in the negotiations leading up to the referendums, does not entail recognition of the “TRNC” or confer statehood thereupon. Secondly, the Court observes that the respondent Government continue to exercise overall military control over northern Cyprus and have not been able to show that there has been any change in this respect. Thirdly, the fact that the Greek-Cypriots rejected the Annan Plan does not have the legal consequence of bringing to an end the continuing violation of the displaced persons' rights for even the adoption of the plan would not have afforded immediate redress.

Also furthermore the court decision does not say if the Annan Plan would have been acceptable to ECHR, but we can sense that court would have welcomed it in general. But the court has to decide on legal issues and conclude to say that, because Annan Plan is rejected it is not valid, so does not change the facts t hand and does not erase Turkey’s obligation because Turkey still has military control over north.

Which makes me think what would have happened if Turkey pulls all of its troops out. This is why a while ago in this forum I have asked what would RoC do if Turkey pulls all of its troops out. Would they try to force their jurisdiction over north before an agreement is reached or would the left the things the way they are till there is a solution found on island. But as usual I did not get a straight answer to my hypothetical question.

[garbitsch]

Mit, you call the Turkish Cypriots who live in Greek Cypriot houses "thieves"???????????? What are the GCs living in T.C houses in South then?????? Are you insane? And your Mercedes analogy is the best joke of the year! So the Turkish Cypriots were so poor that they lived in very bad houses, on the other hand G.Cs were living in palaces. So, the T.Cs got the mercedes and G.Cs bicycle? We lost 3 houses (one was two-storeyed but later demolished) and a couple of plots! But we got a very little house and a plot. We are thieves now??? What an insane person you are!

[cannedmoose]

What an insane person you are!

Not insane at all, some points are well made, he's just blinkered at times when it comes to seeing both sides...

[MicAtCyp]

Garbitsch

I call those who abandoned one property and got by force (=stole) 3 properties thieves YES. I call those who left a bicycle and said they exchanged it by force (=stole) with a Mercedes thieves YES. I call those who left behind properties whose value is the 1/20th of what they got by force (=stole) thieves YES.
I call those thieves who donated the GC properties to settlers, and those who sell them to foreigners thieves YES.
What do you call them?
I call those few GC refugess who after been kicked out by your glorious Turkish Army found some few TC houses to get in, victims of the thieves.

You are a completely irrational person as can be clearly seen in my post dd 17/4/05. I am specialised in treating Insanes like you.