The recent decision by the European Human Rights Court has turned everything upside down on the subject of real estate in the occupied areas. The Court in its wisdom decided that if a property is held/developed by non registered owners and because such a very long time has passed, the existing occupiers have a first priority on the property. It added that the registered owner could apply first to the Compensation Committee set up by the occupying forces, who may decide to pay compensation or suggest an exchange between the occupied property and Cypriot Turkish owned property in the free/Republic area. The Court decided also that the occupied area is occupied and administrated by Turkey and as such Turkey is the responsible party to foot the bill, which could run into billions.

But is this correct? Is it OK for an invader to take possession of one’s property, pay him the property’s value and that is O.K.? Had Britain lost the war, would the Axis, by paying, could retain London???

The compensation committee which examines applications for the compensation/ exchange, it comprises of 5-7 persons, 2 of which are foreign. If the applicant is not satisfied by the solution/amount offered by the committee, he can apply to the occupied area High Court and from there on back to the E.C.H.R. The committee will examine all applications submitted up to the end of 2011. From there on all aggrieved parties must wait until a political solution is found. It is appreciated that the thousands of existing and new cases that are handled by the Committee will take years to be solved, hence at the end, nothing will happen and things will stay as they are and without the pressure from the E.C.H.R. This will cause numerous Greek Cypriot owners to apply to the Committee in order to get some sort of compensation rather than wait for ever. Had Turkey been a wealthy country, this by projection, means that gradually and over the years the occupied area will be bought and thus no more Cyprus problem (??).

To make matters even more complicate, if the Committee suggests an exchange of property, the Cyprus Government does not accept this i.e. to have the Turkish owned property located in the free areas to be transferred onto the applicant’s name (see Tymvios case). So what it is left is cash for land. What a mess indeed and on the one hand we had the Oram’s case hailed as a success by the Greek Cypriots and now the European Court of Human Rights recent decision hailed as a success by the occupied forces.

Are we going to experience part C?

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