120 CYPRUS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT – PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE MARCUS-HELMONS the detriment of the inhabitants of the territory”. The ICJ thus accepted that those acts were valid because it was beneficial to the inhabitants of the territory to do so and so as not to make their position worse. Conversely, it would never have occurred to the ICJ to recognise any validity for acts that were illegal under international law if they necessarily operated to the detriment of the inhabitants of the territory. The ICJ clearly regarded paragraph 125 as the exception, not the rule! Accordingly, if the Court were to apply the ICJ's reasoning by analogy to Article 35 of the Convention (former Article 26), it would be guilty of misinterpretation, since requiring the inhabitants of Cyprus to exhaust domestic remedies before the “TNRC” before applying to the European Court of Human Rights when, moreover, those remedies are known to be ineffective obviously constitutes an additional obstacle for the inhabitants to surmount in their legitimate desire to secure an end to the violation of a fundamental right by applying to Strasbourg. 2. Nor is there any justification for relying on the Advisory Opinion in the Namibia case as a guide to the interpretation of former Article 26 of the Convention. The Opinion did not in any way concern the exhaustion of domestic remedies or the validity of courts established by an illegal government. It served merely as a means of preserving the rights of the inhabitants in a situation of total illegality. 3. The situations in Namibia and northern Cyprus are completely different. The authorities exercising power in the territory of South West Africa were initially legal by virtue of a mandate granted to South Africa by the League of Nations, which was later converted into a “trusteeship” by the United Nations. It was only subsequently, with the declaration of independence by Namibia, that they became illegal. In northern Cyprus courts established by law existed before the Turkish invasion of 1974. It was only after that invasion that the – clearly illegal – courts were set up. 4. Moreover, in the Loizidou v. Turkey judgment of 18 December 1996 (merits), Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-VI, the European Court of Human Rights made no reference to the Opinion in the case of Namibia when considering the issue of exhaustion of domestic remedies under former Article 26 of the Convention. It only did so when considering in general terms the possibility that operations affecting individuals in a de facto regime might be recognised as having some validity. 5. By using it with reference to former Article 26 of the Convention, the Court gives the Opinion in the case of Namibia an unduly wide interpretation for which there is no basis and which the ICJ never intended. The consequence of such a wide interpretation would be that: (a) the European Court of Human Rights could not refuse to recognise the courts