A controversial stance inside CoE on ECHR and Cyprus' Refugees/Displaced persons = 0utdated ?

 

*Strasbourg/News related Viewpoint/- "Bis repetita..."..... Already back on 2002-2003, a controversial CoE Committee  of Ministers ruling suddenly suspended its 1996-2003 pressure on Turkey to implement a famous ECHR's landmark judgement on the Greek Cypriot Refugee "Loizidou" case, postponing the issue for several years later, i.e. practically opening the way for CoE Assembly to end its 1996-2004 "Monitoring" on Ankara's obligations in respect of Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law during 2004, so that the EU could decide to start accession Negotiations wih Turkey on 2004-2005.

That move had come after various previous steps Watering-down ECHR's original case-law on 8/1998 and 2001, which, added to Helsiniki 1999 EU Summit's attempt to impose Turkey's controversial and unpopular EU bid, led to unprecedented Majority Abstention in 1999 EU Parliament's Election followed by an Extreme Right's win at the 1st round of France's 2002 Presidential Vote, for the 1st time in History.  

=> Shortly afterwards, 2 Majority "No" knocked down EU Constitution's Referenda in France and the Netherlands, during 2005, followed later-on also by a 3rd "No" in Ireland. The unprecedented shock wasn't overcome by the EU but only partially, and later-on :  During the 2007-2010 efforts to re-qualify EU - Turkey negotiations as "Open ended", subject also to a condition of EU's "integration" capacity, while mainstream EU core Countries as France and Germany ruled out Ankara's unpopular full accession bid, clearly prefering a "privileged Partnership" link, EU Citizens accepted, in exchange, the new "Lisbon" Treaty, but a Delay of 5 Years marked the European edification. So that, when the 2008/2009 Global Economic and Financial Crisis broke out, EU wasn't yet ready to face it efficiently, because a previously planned (since the creation of €urozone) EU Economic Governance hadn't had the Time to be set up early enough, slowing and partially obstructing an urgently needed, efficient EU response, so that USA's recovery appeared at first sight as comparatively faster, amidst a growing Global Competition...
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This week (6/2013), another CoE's Committee of Ministers' decision seems, at first sight, to have forgotten that Past and turn a blind eye to even obvious dangers, while converging Polls (f.ex. in France, the UK, possibly Germany, Italy, Greece, etc) already warn about a probable upsurge of various Anti-EU movements in the forthcoming, May 2014, EU Parliament Elections; (where the 1999-2004 Majority Abstention risk is also looming) :

Instead of starting, at last, to take some efficient and drastic measures to face the scandalously persisting spectacle of some 200.000 Greek Cypriot Refugees/Displaced persons stll be hindered in 2013 to access their Familly Homes and private properties in their ancestral land, at the Occupied Territories in the Northern part of Cyprus, illegally held by Turkey's Foreign Invasion Army since 1974, despite a series of landmark ECHR judgements since 1996-2001, which remain for nearly ...25 Years without any conclusive result in real practice, since their usurpated Homes/properties still remain inaccessible to almost all victims, on the contrary, CoE's Committee of Ministers decided to simply ... Postpone any examination of ECHR's judgements' implementation, or not, by Turkey, for a whole Year, up to the Spring of 2014 !..

The move came despite fresh proof that, as it was expected and already denounced by the victims' Lawyers from the start, a controversial "Committee" set up in the Occupied Territories by the illegal puppet "regime" set up and sustained by Ankara's Foreign Military Invasion and Occupation of the Northern part of Cyprus, supposed to implement ECHR's 1996-2001 Plenary and Grand Chamber Judgements, on the contrary, didn't even allow any real Restitution of properties even for those few Greek Cypriot Refugees/Displaced persons who were obliged to swallow their pride and dignity, bowing to the Turkish Occupation Army and to the illegal puppet "regime" set up by Ankara, which oblige them to show "Passports" just in order to cross UNO's Peace-keeping buffer line on the road towards their still usurpated Family Homes/Properties  and ancestral land,  as well as to learn necessariily to speak .. Turkish or be practically excluded from any public procedure inside their own country, patiently wait for 5 more Years of expensive and time-consuming  procedure in vain, (etc), without obtaining any satisfactory result at all...

Even worse : A controversial, mere "Chamber" ECHR ruling, (while recent reforms have abolished its initial Plenary, and even its Grand Chamber hasn't yet pronounced itself recently, despite demands to do so), apparently went as far as to let the Turkish Government claim that Restitution wouldn't be a Right for Refugees/Displaced persons' usurpated Family Homes/Private Properties, (even if it's notoriously the No 1 Remedy in such cases, according also to UNO's famous "Pinheiro principles", officially published both by the UNHC for Refugees, the UNHC on Human Rights, and the UN Secretaty General at nearby Geneva, which stress that Restitution is normally the only way for Refugees/SDPs to obtain full satisfaction for the infliged violations of their Human Rights, and a "must",  unless materially impossible,  inspired by ECHR's original 1996-2001 Plenary/Great Chamber landmark judgements)...  

                                                                                                                                                                                
Today, on 2013, after all these years since 1996, what is really at stake is not only ECHR's credibility, nor Human Rights in themselves, and the PanEuropean mecanism for the protection of Citizens' Rights, but something more, involving even crucial Geo-Political issues : I.e., not only Moral and Legal Principles, but even "Real-Politics" plead for better respect of ECHR's initial Judgements, which had raised, both in Europe and elsewhere in the World, many Hopes, afterwards dashed :

(A) First of all, those who push ECHR Chambers and/or CoE's Committee of Ministers to marginalize Refuges/Displaced Persons' Human Right in principle to Resitution of their usurpated Family Homes/Private Properties, unless materially or otherwise impossible for valid reasons, appears dangerously Scandalous, and, in fact, Anti-European :

Obviously because, in principle, International Legal Standards have apparently become, now, ...Better than those of Europe, which is threatened to definitively loose its original Leadership on Human Rights issues...

 

 Particularly if prevails a strange stance pushed by an obscure lobby to practicaly endorse, or at least tolerate in Modern Europe, ..."Ethnic Cleansing"'s persisting results f.ex. at the Turkish Occupied Territories of Cyprus, or even tolerate "War Crimes", as those nowadays condemned by the International Criminal Court's statute, which strongly denounces any Invading and Occupying Foreign State's attempts to chasse away the ancestral inhabitants of an occupied area and "remplace" them by importing there its own nationals as settlers in order to grossly alter the Demographic Structure of a disputed land, while, on the contrary, simple respect of Refugees/Displaced persons' Human Rights could help avoid or reverse, at minimum alleviate such massive crimes which should be normally unthinkable anywhere in Europe Today. (Comp. also CoE Committee of Ministers' reply to its Parlamentary Assembly's Recommendation on Turkish Settlers and the Demography of the Occupied Territories of Cyprus, warning as early as since the 1990ies, as we well as CoE Assembly's Report on the Influx of "Turkish Settlers in the Occupied Territories of Cyprus", debated, voted and adopted since 2003).

F.ex., all those who remember the Stimulating, pro-European feeling among EU Citizens, initially spread by ECHR Plenary's original Judgement in the famous "Loizidou" case, back on 1996, among others, also by that brand new, then, formula, which spoke about the emergence of "a European Public Order" legal area protecting European Citizens' elementary Human Rights, can understand well the bitter disappointments that many would be obliged to feel today, almost 25 years later, (not only on Refugees/Displaced Persons, but even on some other, even more serious Human Rights violations, as f.ex. in the tragic cases of "MISSING" People, where CoE's standards, initially High enough, recently risk to abandon the precedence to ... Latin America's principles, as highlighted by the Pan-American Court's case-law, etc).

(B) But even Politically-speaking, as this same context of Cyprus clearly reveals Today :

Indeed, recent developments and debates on the Political issue of Cyprus indicate that a BiZonal BiCommunal Federal State, risks to end up into a barely disguised Partition or Secession, (particularly under Turkey's notoriously constant pressure in that direction), unless Cyprus' ReUnification is cimented at least by Refugees' Human Rights respect :

Simply because this is a Crucial Factor which can really help bring anew the People of Cyprus together, (i.e. by a susbstantial number of Greek Cypriots returning back to their restored Family Homes at their ancestral lands throughout all the Northern part of the Island's territories, currently occupied by Ankara's Foreign Invasion Army, while Turkish Cypriots' always recognized by Cyprus' Government right to move throughout the Island could be more facilitated in practice).

And that's why Refugees' Human Rights became recently the main reply by new Cyprus' President Nicos Anastassiades to those who had hesitated or objected against a BBF solution, fearing a Partition at the end of the pipeline, (as already the Historic, twice President of the Republic and former Parliament Speaker, experienced Party leader Spyros Kyprianou, had also replied in the Past in order to alleviate similar concerns, while als warning about the crucial importance of Human Rights' respect for a Solution to Cyprus' political issue).

Otherwise, the current Political Deadlock, (which already pushes, silently and slowly, but dangerously, towards a de facto Partition at a longer term), risks to persist further on, in one way or anbother,  blocking any chance for an agreed and sustainable Political Solution in favor of a wider Regional Peace and cooperation.

 

At any case, as things stand, one might Hope, at least, that the present controversial postponement of CοΕ's Committee of Ministers' monitoring on Turkey's unfullfilled yet obligation to at last implement in real practice the most famous and massive Refugees/Displaced persons' ECHR Plenary/Great Chambers' original case law (comp. Supra) for the Spring of 2014, i.e. when Greece will take over the rotating EU Presidency, and therefore, will also Chair the coordination of EU-Group Countries inside CoE's 47 Member large, Pan-European Organization, which will be chaired then by Belgian Foreign MInister Didier Reynders, a supporter of a  Strong Europe, at the same time that the EU Parliament's pre-Electoral campaign is due to have started all around Europe before culminating on the May 2014 excepytionaly crucial vote, it will also be the probable EU Accession into CoE's PanEuropean Convention on Human Rights, (which normally implies also a kind of EU representation inside CoE's Committee of Ministers' sessions dedicated to its Duty to Supervise the execution of ECHR's Judgements), would, taken all together at once, eventually prove Helpful for a kind of "ReNaissance" of CoE's Human Rights' monitoring, both in these and other important areas, (f.ex. on Freedom of Expression, Personal Liberty and prohibition of Inhuman/Degrading Treatments, Demonstration and/or  Religious Freedoms, Fair Trials and Anti-Discrimination, etc), as CoE's Secretary General Thornbjorn Jagland has recently asked for, obtaining the support of a wide Majority at CoE's Committee of Ministers May 2013 session, (comp. "EuroFora"s NewsReports from that last Month's event)...

 

Indeed, as this week's CoE Committee of Ministers' decision on the above-mentioned case diplomatically indicates , they will "Resume consideration of these Questions at their Human Rights' meeting in March 2014, in the Light of All Relevant Facts"....

 

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