The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers is convening on September 17 to 19 to discuss, among other things, progress in implementing European Court of Human Rights judgments in relation to Greek Cypriot properties in the Turkish-occupied areas of Cyprus.
The Republic of Cyprus, in a recent memo to the Committee, concerning the case of the Xenides-Aresti group notes that the just satisfaction which fell due in those cases at various dates between 2007 and 2012 remains unpaid.
It asks the Secretariat to calculate the total outstanding just satisfaction. ‘Together with interest, this amounted already to more than pound 57 million even by August 2022’, the Republic says in the memo.
It also replies to Trkiye’s Memorandum of July 2024, which it notes, ‘is merely the latest in a long series of attempts to avoid its obligations by holding out the prospect of recovery in the context of proceedings before the IPC (immovable properties commission).’ These attempts, it adds, ‘to merge Trkiye’s unconditional ob
ligation to pay just satisfaction ordered by the Court with issues relating to the IPC have been repeatedly and correctly rejected by the Committee as unacceptable.’
Furthermore, the lawyer of one the Xenides-Arestis cases, Achilleas Demetriades, informs the Committee, in a letter that his client, Rock Ruby Hotels Ltd, has reached a friendly settlement agreement through proceedings before the “Immovable Property Commission”, and has received the compensation ruled by the “IPC”, in the amount of 10,500,000 Pound Sterling. The letter also notes that this fully remedies the findings of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Rock Ruby Hotels Ltd v. Turkey and asks the Committee to proceed with the closure of its examination of its case on merits and just satisfaction.
The Republic of Cyprus has also sent the Committee a memo on the property rights of displaced persons, part of the on the Cyprus v. Turkey case, noting that it has received the Independent Expert opinion of Robert Spano, the last Presid
ent of the European Court of Human Rights. It said that the Republic’s central position, ‘echoed’ by Spano, ‘is that the time has now come to resolve the question of the interpretation of the Court’s judgments, which has created the deadlock that Cyprus, Trkiye and no doubt other delegates have found so frustrating.’
The Committee ‘could and should do this’ by requesting the Court, under the provision of the Convention designed for just this purpose, to resolve the disputed question of interpretation that holds the key to the remaining execution of this historic inter-State judgment’, it adds.
It notes that, as in previous years, three issues arise: the interpretation of the two judgments of the Court of 2001 and 2014 in this case, whose execution it is the task of the Committee to supervise, the adequacy or otherwise of the “IPC” as a measure implemented with a view to comply with the Court’s 2001 judgment and the continued non-payment of pound 90,000,000 plus interest, which the Court ordered to be paid a
s just satisfaction in its 2014 judgment.
‘For too many years, the supervision of this cluster has been fatally hindered by a difference of opinion concerning the scope of the Court’s judgment of 2001’, the Republic of Cyprus notes in its memo.
It also notes that Spano, in his opinion cautions ‘against the view that it can be considered justified now to close the execution of this part of the process by proceeding on the basis that the 2014 Judgment can be understood to mean that Trkiye does not have to take any further measures to comply with the 2001 Judgment with respect to the continuing violations creating new victims for the same wrong admonished by the Court.’
Spano, in his opinion, notes that he considers ‘the circumstances ripe for triggering the application of Article 46(3) to request the Committee of Ministers to refer the matter to the Court for an interpretative ruling.’ This is also justified, he adds, when one appreciates the potential ramifications of the Secretariat’s interpretation of Dem
opoulos in its broader international context in light of current developments. If the proposition is accepted, that an occupying power can take measures to effectively eliminate its duty of restitutio in integrum under the Convention on the basis of ex post facto domestic law authority, and thus escape from its obligations of compliance merely by paying compensation, such a stipulation is liable to have grave consequences. For example, he said, invading powers following an act of aggression would have every incentive to transfer, alienate and exploit occupied territory and eliminate in toto an obligation for restitution of property without international responsibility, if all that was required was to establish a domestic mechanism in order to ex post facto (and unilaterally) determine compensation.
The Republic’s memo notes that, according to Cyprus, the availability of certain remedies from the “IPC” cannot remove what the Court found to be Trkiye’s responsibility to cease its continuing interference with G
reek-Cypriot owned properties in the occupied areas of the island. It also notes that according to Trkiye, the Court’s ruling was more limited and supervision is limited to the workings of the “IPC” – the mechanism, considered in Demopoulos and other cases, that was introduced in the Turkish-occupied areas to provide compensation for property interference.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. The European Court of Human Rights sentenced Turkey in numerous cases, brought forward by Greek Cypriots, concerning the violation of their fundamental human rights, following the 1974 invasion.
Source: Cyprus News Agency