A/55/280/Add.1 (d) Properties 73. Patriarch Bartolemeos gave the Special Rapporteur a copy of a memorandum that was submitted to the Turkish authorities. After referring to the many religious, charitable and educational institutions dependent on the Patriarchate, the memorandum goes on to note that those institutions were started and administered by Imperial decree for most of the Ottoman period and were finally granted corporate status in 1913. Further legal arrangements and legislation in the early years of the Turkish Republic classified these institutions as foundations without ever drafting a charter for them. Two declarations of the foundations’ estates were submitted by the Lausanne minorities in 1913 and 1936 to enable the former to receive titles of ownership for their real estate possessions, which had been up to those times held in the custody of various trustees. 74. The document further reads: Subsequently, more pieces of real estate were acquired by the said foundations, usually through donations, wills and direct purchases. In each case, titles of ownership were received following court verdicts upheld by appeals courts to the effect that the foundations were competent to own real estate and that the acts of will, donations or purchases were duly performed. Again in each case the provincial governor’s office would instruct the office of land registry in writing to register the transaction and hand in the titles of ownership to designated administrators of the foundation, who would receive them in its name. Beginning in 1974, the same courts that had approved the acquisitions reversed their decisions and voided the above transfers of ownership on the grounds that real estate acquisition was not expressly mentioned in the said foundations’ charters. The courts stipulated that the declarations submitted in 1936, which were merely listing each foundation’s estate and finances for the previous year without any mentioned whatsoever pertaining to their mission, line of activities, administration, or other details commonly found in such documents were to be considered as charters. As a result of this reversal, all real estate property acquired after 1936 reverted to its previous owners, long since dead. In a few cases, relatives 16 inherited properties, while in the vast majority of cases, the State assumed possession of this ‘abandoned’ property. Appeals to the Turkish Government during the last 25 years have extracted promises to introduce legislation that will reinstate ownership of the lost properties albeit with no concrete results so far. Meanwhile, litigation is still continuing although most legal means have been exhausted. Permanent loss of property acquired after 1936 can have devastating effects for some foundations. Baliki Hospital, a 650-bed facility run by the Greek community in Istanbul and providing in- and outpatient care to well over 35,000 people annually regardless of creed or national origin and free of charge for the needy, relies heavily on real estate income to meet operating expenses. Yet the hospital has lost possession of 132 properties, which make up the majority of its endowment. According to the Turkish Civil Code and the Foundations Act, anyone is free to start a foundation and assign its mission. Since minority foundations were not legal entities until the beginning of the 20th century, and some of them date from time immemorial, they have no duly filed charters. At no time after the passage of the above acts were those foundations asked to submit a charter, which according to the same laws above is supposed to express solely the intentions of the founders. The courts arbitrarily interpret the 1936 financial statements as the foundations’ charters. 75. Quite apart from the attitude of the courts, as described above, the authorities, through the General Directorate of Foundations, have taken advantage of the legislation on unused properties to appropriate the properties and places of worship of the Greek Orthodox community, in a unilateral and often arbitrary manner, and have been using some of these properties for revenue-generating purposes. For example, the Patriarchate had sought to transform its orphanage on Princes’ Island into a hotel. The General Directorate of Foundations dismissed the establishment’s board of directors and declared that the Patriarchate had no rights to this foundation. Legal proceedings on this matter are now under way. Similarly, in the Galata quarter of Istanbul, four Greek Orthodox Churches were reportedly expropriated by this same authority. It was noted that in most cases the Patriarchate has lost