Cyprus-Forum.com

[BigDutch]

“hey guys if you don’t fancy going through The Property Commission in The TRNC you can come direct to us”

No that is not exactly what i said.

What i mean is if one finds that the Turkish implemented commission is represented by officials purporting to be working for the "TRNC" then this doesn't match what the ECHR asked for, and thus the local remedy doesn't exist.

I guess as long as the "TRNC" is missing from all documentation regarding the commission then the ECHR will be happy it is controlled by the occupying force - ie Turkey - and that will be the route to be followed.

Its a good movement towards the future.

[skipper]

This is a nonsense argument considering how the TRNC has been evaluated in previous judgments by the ECHR.

In early cases taken to the ECHR (and still to an extent) Turkey had argued that the TRNC is an independant state and as such petitions should be to the TRNC authorities. The ECHR looked into this and came to the conclusion that whilst acknowledging that there is a working administration with state like institutions it could not be considered independant since the Turkish army has a large presense excercising effective control in areas such as policing it could only be regarded as a sub-ordinate administration. This is the basis for every court case taken against Turkey with regards to Cyprus.

The ECHR has recognised the TRNC as being the sub-ordinate administration of Turkey in the north (ie a local administration) so in this case how could a commission established in the TRNC to handle GC's property claims not be seen to be doing what the ECHR asked for?

This is why regardless of the TRNC appearing in name or not your argument would n't stand, unless some GC's lawyers want go and argue that the TRNC is not controlled by Turkey??

If you look at the previous judgement, the reason why the property commission was rejected then was not because it was established by the TRNC, it was rejected because there was no chance of restitution to the applicant. Since restitution is now possible under certain circumstances the only argument is whether the ECHR thinks that the circumstances where restitution is not possible are valid or not.

The interesting thing with regards to the Aresti case is that her home is in an area where Turkey has agreements after 1974 that the Turkish Army control the vacant area and as such this is why it has been closed off ever since. In the absense of a political agreement to the Cyprus problem, Turkey will argue that this should continue to be the case, infact the commission had offered Aresti her home back after a solution. If the ECHR thinks this is not a valid argument then they could always open up the whole area under the control of the TRNC and allow everyone to go back. I'm wondering how many residents would be willing to reclaim their property in such a case?

Anyhow, I could go on with other aspects relating to this but I think this will suffice for the time being.