elko wrote:We all heard about the Orams case but do you know the fine details? Let me sum up it for you:
1. This case was originally filed in Nicosia on the dark side. It was served to Linda Orams at her home in Lapta in Greek (this is normal). Mr. Orams was away in England at the time. Normally Orams should have filed a "Memorandum of Appearence" within ten days. This is an official form filled in and submitted to court to let the court know that the defendant is going to defend the case either in person or through an advocate.
2. The critical tenth day fell on a Friday. Bearing in mind that the papers were in Greek and Linda's husband was away in England, it was so easy to miss the ten day deadline.
3. On Monday (the 13th day) Linda's Turkish Cypriot Advocate submitted the Memorandum of Appearence in English which was not accepted because only Greek and Turkish are the official languages of the so called ROC. So the Advıocate asked for the official form in Turkish from the court which was not readily available and was told to come back tomorrow. In the meantime, the advocate for Apostolides applied to court on Monday to "Prove" his case i.e. to be given a date to come to court with the Plaintiff and repeat what is written on the claim. The court gave them next day i.e Tuesday (14th day) to prove the case. Normally, the judge uses his/her discretion and gives a date about a month away and also orders the court to inform the defendants of the date when the case is of serious consequencies like tresspass. This is the normal proceedure in normal countries and in normal courts but in this instance, the Plaintiff was given the next day to prove his case. The court must have been in a very big hurry.
4. The advocate for Linda returned to court on Tuesday right at the opening time but the registrar did not manage to find the forms and was told to come bact about 10-11 a.m. He did so, was given the forms in Turkish, filled it in properly but he was told that the judge had already finished the case, sorry, too late.
5. Linda's advocate applied to have the judgement "set aside" but normally in order to be allowed to do that you have to show that you have a bona fide case for defence. They were viled when they talked about TRNC title deeds and other matters and were not given a chance. Hence their application to "set aside" was rejected. They applied to the Supreme Court and they met with the same attitude. In the circumstances, there is no doubt that the courts on the dark side well qualify for the description of "Kangaroo Court" when they behave like this.
The other point is that European Court of Justice has the final say in the interpretation of EU Law. They decided that the judgement of the so called ROC courts must be enforcable in all EU countries even though the judgement is something to do for land beyond their effective control. What most people don't know and some Greek Cypriots try to mislead people is this: ECJ is not a court of appeal and has no power to dismiss or amend the judgement of a court of a member country. Hence it does not mean that ECJ or the Court of Appeal in UK really approved the decision of the ROC or that they found it to be just. They did nothing of the sort and they are not an appeal court for the courts of ROC.
Once the Supreme Court of ROC rejected Orams appeal, Orams could go to ECHR as far as their human rights have been contravened and indeed they have done so. Of course that takes years to have it finalized and as I said they will only deal with the Human Rights side of the issue i.e. whether they were given sufficient chance to defend themselves properly or not. So this is the gist of the matter.
Coming back to Mr. Apostolides, if he wants his land back or compensation, he must apply to the Compensation Board set up in TRNC which was set up with the encouragement of ECHR. Otherwise, he can have the judgement framed and hanged on the wall as an alternative to having his land back!!!
ismet
I've only just seen this and others may have commented.
There are two issues here, the first relating to the initial serving of the writ and the RoC first court proceedings, and secondly the A v O case in the UK(and ECJ).
If
elko's report is true then there is prima facie evidence for the Orams to appeal to the ECHR under Article 6 and/or Article 13. Such an action, if successful, would not result in overturning the ECJ judgment nor the English Court of Appeal judgment, nor even the original RoC court judgments. Instead the best that could happen is that compensation and perhaps some pecuniary damages could be awarded to them. It is highly, highly unlikely that more could be expected.
What
elko says about the Court of Appeal and the ECJ is, I'm afraid, either mistaken or misleading half-truths. (i) No one has suggested that the ECJ is a court of appeal for national courts. None of the protagonists in this case thought this and none of the judges thought this ! The A v. O case was referred to the ECJ
by the English Court of Appeal because it wished for a clear ruling on issues of jurisdiction (in occupied territories nominally within the EU) and not on the substantive issues of A v. O.
If you remember, it was A. who sought enforcement in the English High Court of a RoC court judgment. This was secured, then the Orams appealed against the enforcement judgment (not the substantive judgment on property rights) and won, to which then A. was given leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal. It was, thus, Apostiledes, not the Orams, who took the case to the English Court of Appeal, hence A
versus O (not O versus A). The Court of Appeal, as noted above, then sought a clear ruling from the ECJ not on the substantive matter of property rights nor even about the procedure within the RoC courts,but about the enforcement of one EU state's courts' decisions in the jurisdiction of another EU state.
It seems to me that when
elko writes "Hence it does not mean that ECJ or the Court of Appeal in UK really approved the decision of the ROC or that they found it to be just." it is either attacking a straw figure which no one but himself/herself has built or is just muddying the already murky waters.
