CYPRUS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT
47
Court in the Loizidou case, it cannot be attributed any more legal validity
than its parent “Article 159” which it purports to implement.
187. The Court is persuaded that both its reasoning and its conclusion in
the Loizidou judgment (merits) apply with equal force to displaced Greek
Cypriots who, like Mrs Loizidou, are unable to have access to their property
in northern Cyprus by reason of the restrictions placed by the “TRNC”
authorities on their physical access to that property. The continuing and total
denial of access to their property is a clear interference with the right of the
displaced Greek Cypriots to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions within
the meaning of the first sentence of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. It further
notes that, as regards the purported expropriation, no compensation has been
paid to the displaced persons in respect of the interferences which they have
suffered and continue to suffer in respect of their property rights.
188. The Court notes that the respondent Government, in the
proceedings before the Commission, sought to justify the interference with
reference to the inter-communal talks and to the need to rehouse displaced
Turkish-Cypriot refugees. However, similar pleas were advanced by the
respondent Government in the Loizidou case and were rejected in the
judgment on the merits (pp. 2237-38, § 64). The Court sees no reason in the
instant case to reconsider those justifications.
189. For the above reasons the Court concludes that there has been a
continuing violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 by virtue of the fact that
Greek-Cypriot owners of property in northern Cyprus are being denied
access to and control, use and enjoyment of their property as well as any
compensation for the interference with their property rights.
3. Article 13 of the Convention
190. The applicant Government asserted that the manifest failure of the
respondent State to provide an effective or indeed any remedy to displaced
persons in respect of the violations of Article 8 of the Convention and
Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was in clear breach of Article 13 of the
Convention, which provides:
“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated
shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the
violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”
191. The applicant Government approved in the main the reasoning
which led the Commission to find a breach of Article 13.
192. The Commission referred to its finding that the displaced persons'
rights under Article 8 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
were violated as a matter of administrative practice. In so far as these
practices were embodied in “legislation” of the “TRNC”, the Commission
noted that no provision was made to allow Greek Cypriots to contest their
physical exclusion from the territory of northern Cyprus. On that account