AS EARLY as the beginning of this month, lawyers appealing a landmark decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the Arestis case knew their challenge had no legal basis, press reports said yesterday.
A group of six lawyers this week filed an appeal against the ECHR’s decision of last December ordering Turkey to find ways of providing “redress” to Myra Xenides-Arestis, a Greek Cypriot refugee who lost her property in the events of 1974.
The court had given Turkey three months in which to come up with a mechanism for providing “effective remedies” and six months in which to execute any applications by Greek Cypriot refugees wishing restitution to, or compensation for, their properties in the north.
This week, on the eve of the three-month deadline, Turkish Cypriot authorities announced the launch of the “compensation commission”; almost simultaneously, lawyers acting on behalf of some 1,000 Greek Cypriots filed an appeal challenging the ECHR’s ruling.
But in a communiqué to the Attorney-general’s office on 2 March, the European court had clarified that no one other than the litigants – that is, Xenides and Turkey – could appeal its decision.
This correspondence was well known to the team of Greek Cypriot lawyers, raising questions as to why they made the move when there was no chance of success.
Still, attorneys Andreas Angelides and Christos Clerides yesterday defended their action, arguing that what they were contesting was the soundness of the decision; in their appeal, the lawyers reportedly cast doubt on the validity of the chief justice of the ECHR and one of the other judges on the panel at the time of the ruling.
Meanwhile Arestis’s legal counsel Achilleas Demetriades and the lawyers filing the appeal have been trading barbs, with the former wondering what was the purpose of the appeal if it lacked a legal basis.
Demetriades has hinted that political motivations lie behind the appeal, saying that it did make sense for Greek Cypriots to challenge a court from which they expected justice.
According to Demetriades, the ECHR decision is a highly positive one since for the first time it forces Turkey to take measures to provide redress for Greek Cypriots – meaning it would be counterproductive to appeal it.
In the meantime it remains to be seen whether the ECHR accepts the Turkish Cypriot compensation commission and its governing laws as legitimate. That’s the next crucial step. If the court endorses the commission, the body must examine and pass judgment on any cases brought before it within three months. But whether any Greek Cypriots wish to take advantage of the commission is another matter. And if applications are actively prevented or discouraged by the Cypriot government, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side could, by default, appear blameless.
Legal circles yesterday pointed out a number of “vulnerabilities” in the breakaway regime’s property law that allowed the establishment of the commission.
For example, the text of the legislation makes repeated references to the relevant authorities and officials of the breakaway regime who have business with the property commission. Moreover, the text invokes clauses of the north’s ‘constitution’ to justify how the contested properties ended up in the possession of Turkish Cypriots. Article 159 of the ‘constitution’ has already been deemed by the ECHR as being incompatible with the Charter of Human Rights.
Moreover, the composition of the commission is a significant factor, because the ECHR must be reasonably satisfied that the people sitting on it are unbiased.
The seven-man commission includes two foreign legal experts. However, the passing of any decision needs a two-thirds majority, meaning that the two foreigners’ votes could be made redundant. This, some say, is another “hole” in the law that does not bode well for the commission’s sanctioning by the ECHR.
