THE European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has raised a number of political issues on new developments in Cyprus, jeopardising the outcome of pending Greek Cypriot appeals against Turkey, human rights lawyer Achilleas Demetriades warned yesterday.
Demetriades told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that the Court had raised a number of questions on the post-referendum political situation in Cyprus, that needed answering before September 2, the date set for the hearing of one of his clients.
His client is a Greek Cypriot refugee who’s taking Turkey to court for violation of human rights regarding his property in the occupied north.
Demetriades, who also represented Titina Loizidou in a landmark case against Turkey, said the Court had sent a letter in mid-March informing that 33 approved cases would be frozen until the end of May due to political developments on the island at the time.
But on Friday night he received a letter from the ECHR, the first since the referendum, referring to the September 2 hearing. In the letter, the Court requested answers to three new questions from the lawyers and from Turkey and the Cyprus Republic.
The Court is seeking information on the current status of the so-called compensation commission set up in the occupied north and wants to know whether applicants are being discouraged by the Cyprus Republic or others from seeking recourse to the commission. If yes, the Court is asking in what way are people being discouraged.
Demetriades said the letter raised the question of what legal consequences the failure of the Annan plan would have on cases pending in the Court.
The ECHR has set a timeframe so by June 30, all sides will submit their observations, by August 21 they must give in their answers while on September 2, the hearing will take place.
Demetriades said the letter was accompanied by a letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the Council of Europe who “more or less after a meeting with the President of the Court asked that all Greek Cypriot cases against Turkey, regardless of what stage they are at, be suspended for three months in order to examine the matter of the rejection of the Annan plan”.
“This basically creates a political dimension to the whole issue,” explained Demetriades. “And within the questions of the Court is the issue of what are the consequences of the rejection of the Annan plan on these cases, something which certainly did not exist before,” he added.
The ECHR can only hear cases after all local legal remedies have been exhausted. Up to now, Greek Cypriots could appeal directly to the ECHR because the courts in the north were not internationally recognised. This next stage in the Court will raise a number of serious issues regarding the courts and the compensation commission in the north, examining for the first time the consequences of the rejection of the Annan plan.
Ironically, in the run-up to the referendum, the ‘no’ camp argued that a ‘yes’ vote would close the door to recourse to the Court over property issues. The Annan plan stipulated that in the event of a ‘yes’ vote the government was committed to sending a letter to the ECHR asking that all pending cases be suspended and new cases be refused.
