By a Staff Reporter
TURKEY has been found guilty of violating a Turkish Cypriot doctor’s human rights by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and ordered to pay a total settlement of €19,715.
The Court heard that paediatrician Ahmet Djavit An had repeatedly been barred by the Turkish Cypriot authorities from crossing to the government controlled areas to participate in bi-communal meetings. The doctor said their continuous refusal was in breach of the European Convention for Human Rights.
The ruling, made on Thursday, voted in favour of Djavit An and said Turkey’s refusal to grant him permission to cross into the Republic and the UN-controlled buffer zone to meet with people from the other community was in violation of two articles of the European Human Rights Convention, which protected individuals’ rights to freedom of peaceful assembly. The Court said that between March 8, 1992 and April 14, 1998 only six out of 46 requests for such permits had been granted.
Turkey was ordered to pay €15,000 for non-pecuniary damages and €4,715 for legal costs and expenses. The court voted in favour of the plaintiff by six votes to one. The Turkish judge sitting at the bench made the only rejection.
Turkish claims that Ankara could not be held responsible for events in the areas of Cyprus it occupied were dismissed. It was clear, from the large number of troops engaged in active duties in the occupied territories, that the Turkish army exercised effective control over that part of the island, it said. Therefore, such control demanded Turkey’s responsibility for the policies and actions of the Turkish Cypriot regime, the ECHR added.
But, the Turkish government argued the doctor had not exhausted all domestic remedies to deal with the situation in the north. Nevertheless the court rejected these claims and said Turkey had not proved any of the remedies it had suggested would have rectified the situation or compensated the applicant in any way.
However, the court stressed this ruling was not to be wrongly interpreted as a general statement that remedies were ineffective in the Turkish Cypriot regime, or that applicants were absolved from having normal recourse to remedies that were available and functioning.
The EHRC said it believed all the meetings Djavit An had wanted to attend had been designed to promote dialogue between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, with the hope of securing peace on the island.
Accordingly, the ruling concluded there had been interference with the applicant’s rights to freedom of peaceful assembly.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
