The Cyprus government is discouraging Greek Cypriots from filing applications for property restitution direct to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), fearing that it may undermine its overall legal case in property cases against Turkey.
Around 1,400 Greek Cypriots are affected by an ECHR test case, Arestis v. Turkey, in which the ECHR last December gave Turkey three months to come up with a “remedy” and three months to come up with “a genuinely effective redress”.
Although the lawyer for Arestis argues that this will lead to the return of Arestis’ property six months from the December rulling, the bad part of the ECHR ruling from the Greek Cypriot point of view was that, by giving Turkey six months to comply, the court appeared to accept the idea that the compensation commissions and courts of northern Cyprus could in principle offer an effective remedy, as long as they got the details right.
Last April the Court ruled that the property commission did not constitute effective domestic remedy, thus allowing Greek Cypriots to go directly to the ECHR.
However, in the meantime, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot administration has currently working on a number of draft laws that would make such as commission acceptable to the Strasbourg court.
Although this takes time, as the nationalist Turkish wing needs to hear from the ECHR first that something is not acceptable before making further moves, it is thought to be only a matter of time before the Turkish Cypriots get the formula right.
However, around 1,000 Greek Cypriots refugees applied to the ECHR on Monday, asking that Arestis case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, rather than waiting for the local remedy.
“There is no Greek Cypriot, who in my opinion, will resort to these illegal committees to find justice”, he said.
Clerides described as “wrong” the part of the ECHR ruling which effectively calls on Greek Cypriots to wait for a response from the Turkey or the Turkish Cypriots.
“For this reason we are asking for the issue to be re-examined and to provide for compensation, as in the case of Titina Loizidou”, he added.
The Republic of Cyprus (Greek Cypriot) government, which has won some significant cases at the ECHR including the Loizidou case, is loath to mess with ECHR procedures, which may explain why the Cyprus government is expressing caution about taking cases direct to the ECHR at this stage.
“The position of the government is that we must be careful in our applications to the ECHR”, said Government Spokesman George Lillikas on Monday.
“There are many important and fundamental decisions of the courts which completely safeguard us and we should not attempt to file new applications or make other representations that might possibly not have a positive result”, Lillikas said.
“Our view is that we should best preserve significant vested rights achieved from previous rulings”, he added.
Fiona Mullen
