ANOTHER legal victory – a ‘vindication’ of the People’s Republic as the comrade presidente described it – has given a much-needed boost to the false hopes of the European solution peddled by the bash-patriotic Cyprob warriors.
All the low-down demagogues and lawyers were out in force as soon the news about the European Court of Justice’s ruling on the Orams case broke and they have been boring us ever since with the heroic empty promises they specialise in.
Legal warriors Angelides, Loucaides, Rikkos, (Christos) Clerides took control of the radio shows to inform us about the great big opportunities opened up by the ruling, which they unanimously declared to be a “powerful weapon” for Kyproulla.
You can just see them all on the front line, in battle fatigues, waving the 12-page ruling at the advancing Turkish tanks and using photo-copies of it for our air defences. Who needs the estragoshas when you have such a powerful weapon in your arsenal? And it cost the taxpayer nothing.
Unless the fearless lawyers saw the ruling as a powerful marketing, rather than military, weapon; a marketing weapon that would generate new business for their patriotic law practices.
We all remember the killing some of the most heroic lawyers made after the referendum by encouraging hundreds of naive refugees to file resources to the European Court of Human Rights. Five years later, the only people to have gained anything from the recourses scam have been the lawyers.
IT WILL be a little more difficult to persuade people to take legal action against Britons using their properties in the north because, apart from the procedure being very costly, there are practical difficulties.
To get the procedure going, the illegal occupier of the property would have to be handed a summons to appear in a Cyprus court, which is easier said than done. Even if this successful and the Cyprus court issued a decision, the applicants would then have to apply to a British court for execution of the decision which involves very big costs. And if the Brit has no assets in the UK, the Greek Cypriot would gain nothing, apart from the moral satisfaction of seeing the illegal occupier of his house being declared bankrupt.
And knowing what we Cypriots are like, there will not be too many willing to spend hundreds of thousands of euro in order to derive some moral satisfaction.
THE ONLY politicians who were genuinely rejoicing over the ruling were those who are opposed to the peace talks and would like to see them fail. This is why they made such a big song and dance about the ruling and insisted that it would help comrade presidente secure a better deal for the Greek Cypriots.
According to Simerini, the ruling destroyed “many of the unacceptable Turkish claims relating to the property issue.” The “solution of the property issue will not be the result of give-and-take but a consequence of the decisions of the European Courts,” it argued and added that “no auctions, no exchanges and no compensations of properties could take place.”
No solution would take place either, if Christofias heeded Simerini’s advice, but that would not be such a problem because we would still have in our possession the ‘powerful weapon’ that is the Orams ruling.
TURKISH Cypriots did not react very graciously to the ruling, presumably because it was not the best advertisement for buying properties in the north. The construction industry is doing badly enough without having to cope with the negative publicity generated by the Orams case in the international press.
Now, only lobotomised foreigners would be prepared to invest in property in the north and there are not a lot of them about. The few there are, might opt for the security of buying a holiday home in Paphos for twice the money and no title deed.
As for the Oramses, the Essex plebs who thought they could build a hideously ugly mansion on the cheap on Meletis Apsotolides’ land, it remains to be seen whether the British court actually orders them to demolish it.
Having seen pictures of the mansion, one of many architectural crimes committed on both sides of the dividing line, there would be a good case for a demolition order, even if the land legally belonged to the Oramses.
STAYING on legal matters, the Nicosia District Court put off until June 4 its decision over whether to refer the five accused for the Helios air crash to the Assizes court. All five face charges of manslaughter and of causing death through a reckless act.
If the case goes ahead, I suspect it would result in yet another embarrassment for the Attorney-general’s office, which decided to bring charges against the management of the company, under strong pressure from the relatives of those who died in the crash.
The prosecutor said she would demonstrate that the company’s officers were responsible for employing “inadequate and unfit” pilots. How she would do this, considering the pilots of the Helios plane had all the necessary licences and qualifications, remains to be seen, but if the five are acquitted, the relatives of the victims would not just be throwing bananas at the court building.
If they are to throw anything they should aim some missiles at the office of the Attorney-general, who took the decision to prosecute.
THE COMRADE presidente would be doing his best in the next few days to persuade the legislature to drop its amendment to the government law proposal regarding the reduction of VAT for hotels. Our wise deputies’ amendment would reduce the VAT for restaurants from eight to five per cent as well.
The law, incorporating the amendment, has already been sent back to the legislature by the presidente once. If the legislature insists on including it in the law, Christofias would either have to accept it or refer it to the Supreme Court which would decide on its constitutionality.
He is afraid to do this because the Supreme Court could decide that the legislature had the right to pass laws reducing the State’s revenue, as there is no provision in the constitution saying this can’t be done. There is only a provision clearly stating that the legislature could not pass laws that increase the State’e expenditure.
Given the Supreme Court’s ability to produce some bizarre decisions, the comrade is terrified of the possibility that it would rule in favour of the legislature, thus giving deputies the right to reduce taxes. This would be no bad thing for us ordinary folk, because given the populist ways of our deputies, by the time the next parliamentary elections arrive they may cut all taxes by 50 per cent.
We would have a bankrupt state, but very happy people.
ONLY in Kyproulla could we have a major constitutional dispute over legislators’ desire to reduce a pitta of kebab from €5 to €4.85. That would be the saving for kebab eaters from reducing VAT for restaurants from the current eight per cent to five.
A restaurant bill that came to €100 would be cheaper by €3 under the new regime, which is hardly going to increase the bums on seats at restaurant. I bet restaurateurs who have been demanding this reduction would not even pass it on to the consumers – they would keep prices where they are and pocket the three per cent.
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If restaurants want more customers, why don’t they cut prices by 10 to 20 per cent? But in Cyprus we have re-written the laws of economics as one letter-writer of this paper informed us. A restaurant he regularly went to had recently increased its prices and when he asked the owner why on earth had he done this, he was told: “Because I am getting fewer customers now and my revenue has fallen.”
If this guy is still in business at the end of the year he should be proposed for the Nobel economics pr
ize.
THE SUPREME Court’s tendency to issue bizarre rulings was illustrated a few weeks ago, when it declared the Nicosia zoning plan that was in force since 2006 null and void. This was, reportedly, because one of the members of the Town Planning Council was absent from one of the Council’s meeting that was drafting the zoning plan, and had not been subsequently briefed about what had been decided.
But the interior minister got his own back on the people who had appealed against the zoning plan because their land could not be developed. He declared the land a white zone which means that they cannot develop it. They could of course appeal to the Supreme Court and argue that the white zone decision was unconstitutional because it was signed in the wrong colour ink.
A WORD of sympathy and support for veteran hack Costas Yennaris who, on the night of April 24, was verbally abused and intimidated by a group of ultra-nationalist yobs, while doing a TV report about the anniversary of the referendum for the Greek state channel ERT.
The nationalists, some of whom belonged to a neo-fascist group, arrived at the Ledra Street crossing point from the Ledra Palace, where they had attended the anti-Annan plan mini-rally and demanded that Yennaris interviewed them for Greek TV. Yennaris told them to go away but they refused, surrounding him instead and raising a placard calling for the closing of the crossing points in front of the camera.
One of the demonstrators was stepping on Yennaris’ microphone cable. A lawyer in the group who was subsequently questioned by the cops about the incident claimed on the Lazaros show that he had never stepped on the cable. The cable had in fact ended up under his shoe, without him realising it, he said. I just love smart-ass lawyers.
The neo-fascist yobs also accused Yennaris of being pro-Turkish while one of them told him he had wanted to ‘get him for years’. You almost felt sorry for the self-righteous, smarmy Yennaris, who has spent his entire career promoting the official propaganda on the Cyprob and producing reports about the savage Turks and devious Anglo-Americans.
To be labelled a Turk-lover when you have such impeccable journalistic credentials and write a weekly column in Phil, must be a traumatic experience.
SPEAKING of fascists, we hear that Panos Pip Ioannides, former coupist and currently the father of all bash-patriots was not always the devout worshipper of the European Union that he is today.
Pip who has been pompously pontificating on the Lazaros show against a settlement that does not respect the principles of the EU and demanding that we hold out for a European solution because as European citizens we deserve nothing less, in the past abhorred the EU.
Some Akelites still remember how, back in the late ‘80s Pip had joined the communist party’s anti-EU campaign, because he believed membership would harm the island’s economy. Now he believes membership would ensure a European solution. He was wrong then and he is wrong now about the EU, so we should not accuse him of lacking consistency in his political views.
ORGANISERS of last week’s pitiful anti-Annan plan rally were given advertising slots on CyBC TV free of charge. This generosity was sanctioned by corporation’s prim and proper general manager Themis Themistocleous, who was appointed to the job because the Supreme Court had cancelled the appointment of the man chosen by the board. Themis got the job because he was an obsequious follower of the late Ethnarch which is why he felt duty-bound to give free advertising to the fiesta organised by his fellow bash-patriotic hard-liners.
He has probably realised that his contract will not be renewed by the comrades and sees no point in modifying his hard-line positions on the Cyprob.
OUR GOOD friend the finance minister should stop making any more economic forecasts. Towards the end of the previous week, Charilaos predicted, for the 135th time this year that bank interest rates would come down. Last Monday businesses received a letter from the B of C informing them that interest on loans taken before 2008 would increase by one percentage point. Marfin Laiki customers received a similar letter. When will our friend get something right?
We won’t even bother mentioning his economic growth forecasts which he has reviewed downwards on at least half a dozen occasions. The guy gets his forecasts wrong more often that the Meteorological Service.
NOW IS the time for our popular weekly feature, The Wisdom of Michalis Ignatiou.
“Both Mrs Clinton and much more so president Barack Obama, believe that the previous eight years were the most disastrous for America and have devoted themselves to changing everything. And how would it be possible to put right all the injustices of (George) Bush and (Dick) Cheney while applauding the crime against Cyprus, which was presented in the form of the Annan plan.”
Note: Michalis Ignatiou writes a weekly column in Phil about the undemocratic Annan plan.
