But it won’t be tomorrow
More restitution of Greek Cypriot property (rather than compensation) could be on the cards over the longer term if, as expected, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) finds unacceptable some of the key rules of the Turkish Cypriot Immovable Property Commission that is handling Greek Cypriot property claims.
The Commission was set up in response to court cases at the ECHR, where the Court has demanded that Turkey find a domestic remedy and a genuinely effective redress to property claims.
However, moves by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots to address these issues have been slow inter alia for political reasons, as every step of the way has to be justified to the nationalists.
For example, the UBP, formerly led by Rauf Denktash, tried to prevent the creation of the Immovable Property Commission, arguing that it was contrary to the ‘TRNC’ constitution, although the TRNC supreme court ruled that the Commission was not unconstitutional.
For this reason, the authorities move slowly: they try something out; the ECHR says it is not good enough; that gives them the justification they need to go one step further.
The new Commission has so far restituted two properties to Greek Cypriots and ordered compensation for a third.
Compensation will be paid in Cyprus pounds, with a cheque from an international bank.
It has also offered restitution to the plaintiff in the pilot case at the ECHR, Myra Xenides-Arestis, although she has reportedly turned down the offer.
In principle the Immovable Property Commission will consider all cases, and all options may include compensation for loss of use and non-pecuniary damages.
Compensation offer likely in most cases
However, at a briefing among property rights and human rights experts at the PRIO Cyprus Research Centre on June 28, it became clear that the Commission’s main weakness will be that in practice, it will offer compensation over restitution in most cases.
Property lying in military areas such as Varosha, occupied property, ‘significantly improved’ property (similar to the Annan Plan) and other categories will be restituted only after a settlement is found, in what Kudret Özersay, lawyer at the Eastern Mediterranean University Department of International Relations, calls ‘theoretical restitution’.
Nevertheless, under theoretical restitution, all building on the property would cease and it cannot be bought and sold.
So the real test will come when a Greek Cypriot refugee insists on restitution instead of the compensation on offer.
The case will climb from the Property Commission through the Turkish Cypriot courts (the domestic remedy demanded by the ECHR) and no doubt end up in the ECHR.
If the ECHR decides that compensation is not good enough — it has already ruled that Greek Cypriot rejection of the UN Plan is irrelevant — and the property must be restituted, the Turkish Cypriot authorities will have to go back to the drawing board and redraft the rules to allow for compensation in a wider range of cases.
Intellectual somersaults
Restituting property that is occupied will require even more intellectual somersaults on behalf of the Turkish Cypriot administration.
As explained by PRIO’s Senior Consultant, Ayla Gürel, the concept of property possession and ownership developed only gradually over the decades, but by 1995, amendments elevated the status of ‘definitive possessory certificate’ to the status of title deed, albeit recognised only by the Turkish Cypriot administration.
This implies that in the past decade, much of the Greek Cypriot titled property in the north has been treated by the Turkish Cypriot authorities as if it belonged to a Turkish Cypriot (or Turkish mainlander or other deemed owner) regardless of its status pre-1974.
On the other hand, in order to comply with international law, and in order to handle claims for restitution as opposed to compensation, the property will have to be treated by the authorities as belonging to a Greek Cypriot.
The administration will also be doing the splits in other ways. Those who hold the purse-strings will be hoping that the matter is settled by restitution, so as to save potentially millions of lire in pay-outs that will also carry an exchange rate risk for the payer.
But those who will have to deal with angry Turkish Cypriots, some of whom may be forced to move for perhaps the third time since the 1960s, will be hoping that the Greek Cypriot refugees take the money and run.
Costs and potentially shifting refugees again would have been issues even if the Annan Plan had been implemented. But the difference here is that it is happening without the backing of international donors and without the explicit consent of the Greek Cypriot community, which suggests that things could be much more messy all round.
Fiona Mullen
