Cyprus-Forum.com

[Piratis]

Justice can be served in many ways. Hopefully for them they will get justice in another way. In the UK they missed a good chance for getting away with a crime with a very small for them penalty.

[Pyrpolizer]

you would do better trying to find a solution than running around legal courts

Stop parrotising. It is not upto the individuals to find a solution it is upto those who govern. In the absense of a solution an individual has no other option but to use the EU or other Courts where he hopes to either find justice or at least protect his property from illegal actions.

all the Orams and other Brits have to do to blow this whole case out of the water is sell their property in the UK.

Assuming of course the value of their assets in the UK are less, and assuming they will never again travel in any EU country where an arrest warrant will be waiting for them at the airport, and assuming they have no inheritants to which they might be interested to inherit their assets after they die, and assuming they dont get pension from the UK that will immediately be cut to half to pay for their illegal actions, and assuming they will never want to go back to the UK as they will not even own one bed to sleep anymore and assuming a lot of other things you are obviously incapable to assume.

And all these just to live in a splendit pseudo in a stolen GC property?????

[elko]

Pyropolizer wrote:

As far as I remember this refers to the first appearance at the court in Nicosia. The same arguments "that the first trial did not give the defendants enough time, thus the default initial decision was invalid" were even accepted by the court in Nicosia and the first judgement was put aside. So the trial was REPEATED some time later. It seems Justice Jack totally ignored the fact that the default judgement was put aside and the trial was REPEATED. And that the time between the two trials was more than enough for everybody to prepare his defense.

My friend, you got it wrong. I am not saying that it is deliberate but somehow you do get your facts wrong. It must be the Greek Cypriot propaganda machine, hiding facts or twisting them. This is what Justice Jack wrote in his judgement at paragraph 58:

Are Mr and Mrs Orams barred from relying on Article 34.2 by reason of their application to have the default judgment set aside and its failure?
58. Article 34.2 does not refer to the position where a defendant is able to and does apply to have the default judgment set aside but the application fails.

Article 34.2 deals about not giving sufficient time to the defendant to defend his case and clearly stipulates that the opinion of the country where enforcement is sought is important, i.e. the opinion of the court in Cyprus is immaterial.
Orams did apply to the court in Nicosia to have the judgement set aside but it was refused. The appeal in Cyprus is made against this decision.
Now suppose that the appeal court in Nicosia upholds the appeal and Orams are given a chance to defend themselves and eventually they lose again. Will this have any effect on the Orams? As far as UK is concerned, too late. The cardinal rule is that if the case is substantially the same, you cannot bring it to the court again.
ismet

[Pyrpolizer]

My friend, you got it wrong. I am not saying that it is deliberate but somehow you do get your facts wrong.

The fact is there was a second trial 5 months after the first one where the Orams were asking for the first decision to be put aside. Technically when a court accepts such an application and proceeds to hearings is actually setting the first decision on hold. For me there is no difference than setting it aside at least temporarily.

Secondly notice carefully what the British Judge says. He DOESN’T say the Cypriot court REFUSED to set aside the judgement it says the Orams FAILED in setting it aside. It is a different thing to be refused right away and a different thing to go to trial hearing and fail to get what you want.

I don’t see anywhere at the hearing of that second trial any argument supporting the fact the the original decision should be set aside because the Orams did not have time to defend themselves.
On the contrary all their arguments were that the court was inappropriate to judge them, that they bought the land "legally" from "trnc" and similar stuff. Heres what the British judge himself says about it. He even mentions the second decision at Nicosia was 36 pages long.
1. On 15 November 2004 an appearance was entered on behalf of Mr and Mrs Orams. It was not conditional. On the same day an application was issued on their behalf that the judgment be set aside. The application was supported by affidavits from Mrs Orams and Mr Mentes. Following a hearing at which Mrs Orams gave oral evidence judgment was delivered by District Judge Efrem on 19 April 2005 dismissing the application. It was a substantial judgment, 36 pages in translation. The judge held that by reason of the merger of the Kyrenia district with the Nicosia district in 1974 and the land at Lapithos being in the Kyrenia district, the court – that is the District Court at Nicosia, had jurisdiction to try the case (page 20 of the translation). She considered the English case of Hesperides Hotels v Muftizade irrelevant because the court was there concerned with its jurisdiction over foreign real property, namely the hotels. Here, as she held, the court was concerned with real property over which it had jurisdiction. She cited the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, Loizidou v Turkey [1997] 23 EHHR 513, as authority that ownership of land in the north of Cyprus remained with its original Greek Cypriot owners. That defeated the submission that the court should take account of the de facto situation in the north (page 22). She then turned to whether Mr and Mrs Orams had shown an arguable defence (page 23). The onus to establish a good or prima facie arguable defence was on Mr and Mrs Orams (page 25). The basic argument that Mr and Mrs Orams owned the property under the title deed issued by the TRNC was answered by Loizidou. The judge also cited Xenides-Arestis v Turkey, Application no. 46347/99, judgment 22 December 2005, and other ECHR cases to like effect. She held that Mr Apostolides had not lost his right to the land (page 27). She held that the conduct of Mr and Mrs Orams towards the property amounted to trespass (page 30). She held that neither ‘local custom’ nor the good faith of Mr and Mrs Orams could provide a defence (page 31). She held that Regulation No 44/2001 was irrelevant because it was concerned with the recognition and execution of judgments in other jurisdictions and was irrelevant to the question of setting aside the judgment obtained by Mr Apostolides (page 33). The judge held that no prima facie or arguable defence had been shown and so the application to set aside the judgment must be dismissed (page 33). By its order given on 19 April 2005 and drawn up on 26 April 2005 the District Court ordered that the application for setting aside the judgment should be dismissed, and awarded costs to Mr Apostolides.

2. Mr and Mrs Orams have appealed against the judgment of District Judge Efrem of 19 April 2005 to the Supreme Court of Cyprus. The appeal has still to be heard. In the written address filed on behalf of Mr and Mrs Orams and dated 25 November 2005 emphasis is laid on Protocol 10 to the Treaty of Accession and Regulation No 44/2001.


So my initial argument still remains. The Orams were given the opportunity 5 months later to present reasons why the first decision should be set aside. It was actually a second trial. They presented their arguments and they lost. Or as the British judge says they failed to set the first decision aside.

The British judge based his judgement on the short time limit of the first trial as if 15 days were not enough to just appear at a court and ask for postponement as everybody would do in such a case when they cannot prepare an adequate defense. He completely oversees the fact they did not appear at ALL during the first trial, neither did they assign a lawyer to appear for them, neither asked for a postponement. The British judge made no mention to their obvious attempt to CONTEMPT THE COURT and ruled arbitrarily that the 15 days were indeed not enough to prepare a defense as if the whole trial was set to finish in one day.. He oversees the fact that if this was their responsibility to just show up at the court and ask for as much time as they wanted to prepare their defense.…

Despite of that the court accepted to hear them and judge once again why the initial decision should be set aside. The arguments they presented and hence lost, are summarised by the British judge in his own decision, and nowhere do I see any argument presented by them in support of the British judge ruling that they had not enough time for defense.

Now suppose that the appeal court in Nicosia upholds the appeal and Orams are given a chance to defend themselves and eventually they lose again. Will this have any effect on the Orams? As far as UK is concerned, too late. The cardinal rule is that if the case is substantially the same, you cannot bring it to the court again.

It will not be substantially the same. In fact 1 of the 2 arguments why is supposely not enforceable (due to short time limit) is gone.The second argument is what protocol 10 means.

But hey, lets suppose Apostolides finally loses his case just because of this short time limit of the first decision.
How on earth would the thousands of GCs who will follow as soon as this trial is over could ever lose? It is just one simple technical point. Give them 3 months give them 6 months to appear at the Nicosia District Court. Then what? Tell me, I am full of ears.