THE EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected applications from two Greek Cypriots who complained of not having been able to return and enjoy their homes in the Turkish-occupied north.
The decision effectively means that the ECHR does not recognise the rights of people who were children when they were made refugees in 1974 by citing the time that has elapsed since the Turkish invasion.
“This has to do with the concept of home,” human rights lawyer Achilleas Demetriades said yesterday. He said ‘home’ is a distinct human right that has nothing to do with the meaning of property.
“Unfortunately the result is not good for our side because the court ruled that the concept of home by itself cannot be protected when it comes to children who were 10-11-years-old in 1974,” Demetriades told state radio. “With the passage of time it is no longer considered that their home is there.”
The applicants, Tasos Asproftas and Marianna Petrakidou, were born in 1963 and live in Nicosia.
They were both arrested by Turkish forces while taking part in a demonstration on July 19, 1989 in Nicosia. Relying on Articles 8 — right to respect for home — and Article 14 –prohibition of discrimination — both applicants complained of not having been able to return to and enjoy their homes, situated in the area under the control of the Turkish military.
In its decision, the ECHR said “that it is not enough for an applicant to claim that a particular place or property is a ‘home’; he or she must show that they enjoy concrete and persisting links with the property concerned.”
The nature of the ongoing or recent occupation of a particular property is usually the most significant element in the determination of the existence of a ‘home’ in cases before this Court, the ECHR said.
“However, where ‘home’ is claimed in respect of property in which there has never been any, or hardly any, occupation by the applicant or where there has been no occupation for some considerable time, it may be that the links to that property are so attenuated as to cease to raise any, or any separate, issue under Article 8.”
The court said while an applicant does not necessarily have to be the owner of the ‘home’ for the purposes of Article 8, it may nonetheless be relevant in such cases of claims to ‘homes’ from the past that they can make no claim to any legal rights of occupation or that such time has elapsed that there can be no realistic expectation of taking up, or resuming, occupation in the absence of such rights.
Nor can the term ‘home’ be interpreted as synonymous with the notion of “family roots”, which is a vague and emotive concept.
“For almost his entire life, the applicant (Asproftas) has been living elsewhere. The fact that he might inherit a share in the title of that property in the future is a hypothetical and speculative element, not a concrete tie in existence at this moment in time,” the ECHR said.
The decision can be appealed. The government said the decision was unfair.
Acting spokesman Titos Christofides said the government would study the decision, and reiterated that applications to the court en masse risk getting negative decisions, “which are a drawback to our case.”
The decision is a new major blow from the ECHR in less than three months. In March the court gave its blessing to the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) in the occupied areas as an effective domestic remedy of Turkey.
As a result of the landmark ruling, Greek Cypriot refugees seeking compensation or restitution for their properties in the north now have to exhaust all domestic remedies in the occupied areas before applying to the ECHR in Strasbourg.
