TWO lawyers, one Greek Cypriot and one Turkish Cypriot, clashed at the Nicosia district court yesterday over whether a judgment ordering a British couple living in a Greek Cypriot property in Lapithos to demolish their home should be set aside.
Greek Cypriot lawyer Constantis Candounas spent more than an hour cross-examining Turkish Cypriot lawyer Gunesh Mentesh over an affidavit he gave to the court along with the application for the case to be set aside. Candounas said he believed the affidavit contained “legal and factual” irregularities.
In November last year, a Nicosia court ruled that Linda and David Orams from Sussex demolish the house they build unlawfully on the land belonging to Greek Cypriot Melitis Apostolides.
The Orams then issued an appeal asking for the ruling to be set aside in order that the case begin again, thereby giving them and their lawyer more time to prepare their defence.
“Mr Gunesh Mentesh filed an affidavit with the application to have the original judgment set aside. I had the choice of whether to accept the contents of the affidavit or to cross- examine him. As the plaintiff did not accept the contents of his affidavit, I had to cross-examine him,” Candounas said yesterday.
Candounas’ objections to the affidavit centred on claims by Mentesh that the statement of claim issued against the Orams had been “baseless, concocted and fabricated”.
Asked in court to explain what he had meant, Mentesh said the court had been misled on the nature of the property the Orams had built and were now being asked to demolish.
“It is as if the property in question was a small, simple house. It was a major investment worth around £160,000,” Mentesh said.
Mentesh also included in his affidavit references to a 10-point agreement signed by Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and president Spyros Kyprionou in 1979. Asked by Candounas to read to the court relevant sections of the agreement, Mentesh read a paragraph referring to the closed city of Varosha – a passage that seemed to bear little or no relation to the case.
However, Mentesh explained: “We brought up the issue of the 10-point agreement because it contained agreements on property, region by region. We thought these were relevant, but they [Greek Cypriot owners] say ‘this is my land and I’m not going to give it up’.”
Mentesh was also questioned on a statement in the affidavit that the property no longer belonged to Apostolides and that it now belonged to his clients, the Orams. To this, Mentesh replied: “This is not my opinion as either a lawyer or an individual. It is simply the way it stands under the laws and regulations of the north.”
Candounas did, however, back down on one point made Mentesh made in his affadavid, namely that the Orams had had good reason for responding later than required to the original summons delivered last Autumn. The late response resulted in the court issuing a default ruling that the house be demolished. Mentesh claimed the delay had occurred as a result of difficulties his office had finding someone qualified enough to translate the summons from Greek to English.
“I don’t believe any more that the fact they came to court late should stop them winning the case. My only concern is to show they have no defence,” Candounas said yesterday.
Conclusions to the Orams’ appeal, and those of yesterday’s cross examination, will be presented in Nicosia district court on April 19.
