LAST WEEK’S decision of the European Court of Human Rights continues to be the main issue of public debate, which is no bad thing. After all, this was a wake-up call for all Greek Cypriots who believed that their property rights would be unaffected by the passage of time and bought the politicians’ myth that a settlement was not a matter of urgency.Unfortunately, the debate has avoided the main point of the ECHR decision, degenerating instead into a blame game. Some have blamed the decision on the lawyer/politicians who encouraged refugees to file over a thousand recourses to the European Court and thus prompting it to propose the setting up of the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) in the north. Others put the responsibility on the refugees (some 400) who applied to the IPC, thus giving it legitimacy. The hard-line politicians, who advocated that the Cyprus problem could be solved in the courts, blamed the judges of the ECHR for taking a politically expedient decision.
In a way everyone was correct. The ECHR wanted to find a way to dismiss the individual property claims of refugees after it was inundated with applications and it set up the IPC. It declared it an acceptable domestic remedy in order to block the submission of more applications. Refugees gave legitimacy to the Commission by applying for compensation, but they had no other choice under the Papadopoulos government which had no interest in pursuing a settlement; they saw the commission as their only hope of getting some compensation for their properties.
And the judges took a political decision, as many lawyer claimed, because they felt the ECHR was being abused by Greek Cypriots. They felt Greek Cypriot property claims could be settled by a political solution to the Cyprus problem, a view endorsed by President Christofias. In short, a combination of factors contributed to the decision released by the Court eight days ago.
The blame-game everyone has been engaging in for the last week is futile, but for the hard-line politicians and their patron the Church, it is preferable than having to deal with the hard choices presented to us by the decision. We either work for a settlement which would not guarantee the return of all the refugees to their homes but would ensure they would be compensated for their properties, or we surrender the occupied part of Cyprus to Turkey and hope that a maximum number of refugees would receive some compensation from the IPC. The ECHR has even placed a December 2011 deadline on applying for compensation. After this, refugees would have no legal claim to their properties in the north.
This is what our wise politicians should be discussing instead of looking for scapegoats to blame the consequences of their short-sighted policies.
