THE lawyer for Greek Cypriot refugee Meletis Apostolides has filed an appeal in the UK against the British High Court’s decision in favour of David and Linda Orams, who built a villa illegally on his property.
Constantis Candounas told the Cyprus Mail he had filed the appeal earlier this month. He said the ruling by the British court last month had been a “complete and utter mistaken interpretation” in its application of protocol 10 of Cyprus’ accession treaty.
“Also, we believe it was not open to the judge to make the finding the way that he did,” said Candounas.
Apostolides lost his battle to win back his property through the courts after a UK judge ruled that an earlier Nicosia court decision to evict British couple Linda and David Orams from his Lapithos property was unenforceable due to protocol 10, which suspends the acquis for the north.
The protocol had been added to Cyprus’ accession treaty because the Cypriot government did not was to be held responsible by the EU for events that happened in the north outside of its control.
Candounas said, however, that rather than protecting the Republic, it appeared the British judge’s interpretation of the protocol means that protocol 10 has, in effect, protected those in the north buying and selling Greek Cypriot properties.
His job now was to compile documents that would convince an appeals court that the decision was reached was a wrong interpretation of protocol 10.
He said it might be next summer before the issue was back in court and that it was likely the Orams legal team would again include British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s barrister wife Cherie Booth.
“She was such a success first time around, why not use her the second time around?” Candounas said.
The British court ordered Apostolides to pay 75 per cent of the legal costs of the case. However, it was hoped that the order to pay the full £770,000 sterling costs incurred by the Orams could at least be partially deferred pending an appeal.
Candounas admitted that it would be necessary to seek funding for the second round. He said he didn’t know how much the appeal would cost.
