TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP1 (Applicant): I know that there is no principle of binding precedent in this court.
AP1 (Applicant): But as I understand the position, previous decisions are taken into account very seriously.
AP1 (Applicant): They are often followed.
AP1 (Applicant): And basically, well-established case law is not departed from, so far as I know, so soon after these decisions.
AP1 (Applicant): And therefore, in my submission, it is not permissible to come to this court again and ask this court again to say that, well, yes, on this occasion, the previous decisions do not apply.
AP1 (Applicant): The Republic of Cyprus sought to distinguish this case with the others.
AP1 (Applicant): The others were to do mostly, I think, apart from Fokah, which was, I think, an Article 5.1 case.
AP1 (Applicant): One of the articles engaged was an Article 5.1 point.
AP1 (Applicant): The other points were engaged with property.
AP1 (Applicant): As I understand the submissions of the Republic of Cyprus, they're saying that, well, in those other cases, they were not concerned with facts whereby the governor or a governing agency in the Republic of Cyprus had to deal with a governing agency in the TRNC.
AP1 (Applicant): And they sought to make that distinction.
AP1 (Applicant): In my submission, that is a distinction without a difference, without a difference at all.
AP1 (Applicant): If anything, the right to life is infinitely more important in my submission.
AP1 (Applicant): And the right to life is infinitely more important than the right to property.
AP1 (Applicant): I don't think I need to dwell on that.
AP1 (Applicant): It's obviously right.
AP1 (Applicant): And I can give you examples of where, factual examples of where the right to life can be engaged requiring cooperation between the two sides apart from police, apart from police officers.
AP1 (Applicant): Say you have, as there are in Cyprus, big fires and that lives are in danger.
AP1 (Applicant): Is it to be said really that the Republic of Cyprus Fire Brigade and the TRNC Fire Brigade, if they need to liaise and coordinate with one another in order to save lives across the line in Cyprus, is it to be said that actually they mustn't do that?
AP1 (Applicant): They mustn't talk to each other.
AP1 (Applicant): They're not allowed, according, if the Republic of Cyprus submissions are correct, they're not allowed to talk to one another.
AP1 (Applicant): There is evidence, clear evidence in this case.
AP1 (Applicant): I think that it's probably a paragraph 131, but I stand corrected.
AP1 (Applicant): It's in my latest submissions.
AP1 (Applicant): The police officers were saying, I'm not talking to the other policeman on the other side, even though a child was murdered.
AP1 (Applicant): Is it to be said that if there is a need for medical treatment, that the ambulance service has to move from either the Turkish side to the Greek side or vice versa, depending on the circumstances, is it really to be said that the doctors cannot sort of do a handover, that they cannot talk to one another because they're government employees and it means recognition?
AP1 (Applicant): Of course, our submission means nothing of the sort in any event.
AP1 (Applicant): But that's what the submission amounts to, that we will not talk to the other side.
AP1 (Applicant): And let me give you another example, which actually happened, although it didn't happen in Cyprus.
AP1 (Applicant): It happened as between Greeks and Turks.
AP1 (Applicant): In, I think, 2000, there were very bad earthquakes in both Greece and Turkey.
AP1 (Applicant): And as a result of these earthquakes, there was assistance given by both Greece to Turkey first, and then Turkey to Greece.
AP1 (Applicant): And it was called the period of earthquake diplomacy.
AP1 (Applicant): I mean, some of you may remember this.
AP1 (Applicant): What is being suggested here is that sort of thing, if it happens in Cyprus, should not mean that the two sides, trying to say you have a child or people buried in the rubble, and there is a need for salvage to take place, or for saving of lives.
AP1 (Applicant): And they say, no, no, you mustn't coordinate.
AP1 (Applicant): We mustn't talk to each other.
AP1 (Applicant): That, in my submission, cannot be right.
AP1 (Applicant): Be that as it may, I move on, really, and say basically that this court is being asked to depart from previous decisions.
AP1 (Applicant): The previous decision, the facts of this case, are not distinguishable.
AP1 (Applicant): And consequently, in my submission, it is appropriate for the court to follow the previous decisions of, in particular, Cyprus and Turkey.
AP1 (Applicant): Now, Cyprus and Turkey is very important, because Cyprus and Turkey was an interstate case.
AP1 (Applicant): It wasn't just a case between an applicant and a respondent government.
AP1 (Applicant): It was an interstate case.
AP1 (Applicant): In other words, the state itself brought cases.
AP1 (Applicant): The Republic of Cyprus won almost all the points, except one.
AP1 (Applicant): The point that they lost on was this non-recognition point.
AP1 (Applicant): On that point, the court, I think by a majority, if I remember rightly, decided that actually that human rights override the duty of non-recognition.
AP1 (Applicant): So I think I should move on, because I've got limited time.
AP1 (Applicant): What I really would like to say is really this, that in our submission, the unique circumstances obtaining in Cyprus, because they are unique.
AP1 (Applicant): We as Cypriots are not proud of the fact that the circumstances in Cyprus are unique at all.
AP1 (Applicant): But the fact is that they are unique.
AP1 (Applicant): And in our submission, it is not right.
AP1 (Applicant): And it would not be right, in light of all the authorities.
AP1 (Applicant): It is not right that the law should be determined by a factual matrix that is unique and sui generis.
AP1 (Applicant): As I said before, there is authority from this court, I think, in the case of Wemhoff and Germany, that when you are faced with two interpretations, the interpretation that's at my point, page 2i, the interpretation that protects human rights should be followed, rather than the one that doesn't.
AP1 (Applicant): I emphasize, this is a human rights court.
AP1 (Applicant): If there are problems in Cyprus of a political nature, then those problems are to be sorted either politically or in another forum, but not this forum.
AP1 (Applicant): This forum is concerned with preserving the human rights of the individuals that inhabit the European legal space.
AP1 (Applicant): I move on now to the next point, which is on the jurisdictional link point.
AP1 (Applicant): I've tried very hard to understand the submissions made by the excellent submissions, I should say, by the Turkish side.
AP1 (Applicant): But they amount to this, that actually, Turkey has nothing to do with this crime, and therefore, there is no jurisdictional link.
AP1 (Applicant): You appreciate, obviously, that there needs to be a jurisdictional link, elsewise, there is a worldwide obligation.
AP1 (Applicant): But the Turkish side maintains there is no jurisdictional link.
AP1 (Applicant): And although the submissions are well-presented and long, the reality is that it is not the case that the Turkish side has no jurisdictional link.
AP1 (Applicant): My first submission in reply to those points on the Turkish side is that actually, the jurisdiction which was given to Turkey by this court in the Loizidou case, the jurisdiction given to Turkey was not given to them because on territorial grounds.
AP1 (Applicant): Actually, in international law, including the Treaty of Establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, the territory of Cyprus is one.
AP1 (Applicant): It is one and one alone.
AP1 (Applicant): It's not actually divided in any way.
AP1 (Applicant): The territory of Cyprus is not only indivisible, it is against the Constitution of Cyprus for it to be divided.
AP1 (Applicant): And consequently, in my submission, the jurisdiction exercised by Turkey is actually belongs to Cyprus.
AP1 (Applicant): It is only exercised by Turkey because, putting it neutrally, because of course this court is not concerned with the politics of it, because there have been issues between the two sides.
AP1 (Applicant): And Turkey is in effective control of North Cyprus.
AP1 (Applicant): But the jurisdiction, the legal ownership of the jurisdiction belongs to Cyprus.
AP1 (Applicant): And therefore, Turkey only has jurisdiction in North Cyprus because of the need to protect human rights, because of the need to have a state answerable in this court to human rights violations.
AP1 (Applicant): That's the only reason.
AP1 (Applicant): So really, the purpose of ascribing jurisdiction to Turkey was to close a human rights gap.
AP1 (Applicant): Nothing more.
AP1 (Applicant): So far as the jurisprudence of this court is concerned, nothing more.
AP1 (Applicant): That being so, it would be very eccentric indeed if this court were to decide to open a huge gap in human rights protection by saying that when someone, a murderer, moves from the Turkish-controlled part of Cyprus to the Republic of Cyprus and commits a murder and then returns, according to the Turkish side, there is no jurisdiction.
AP1 (Applicant): But how can that be?
AP1 (Applicant): How can it be that there is no jurisdiction?
AP1 (Applicant): A, there is a jurisdictional link because, in my submission on the facts, it must be right that if someone, this is what was decided in Olochlin, Olochlin, the Irish case, that if terrorists come from one country to another country, commit murder, and then go back, I mean, how can you say?
AP1 (Applicant): But actually, in the case of Cyprus, it's beyond that because truth to tell, the fact is that the jurisdiction exercised by Turkey belongs to Cyprus and is temporarily not available to Cyprus, basically because Cyprus is not powerful enough to make sure it's not there.
AP1 (Applicant): And consequently, in my submission, this is stating the obvious.
AP1 (Applicant): Had Cyprus been in the way it was without being divided, what would have happened was that these police officers would have gone over to wherever the criminals, the murderers were, they would have arrested them, questioned them, and then tried them.
AP1 (Applicant): So in my submission, the answer to the jurisdictional point is really a very simple one.
AP1 (Applicant): Actually, it is the same jurisdiction.
AP1 (Applicant): It is one jurisdiction.
AP1 (Applicant): But in any event, Olochlin and Ratsev, the recent case of Ratsev, covers the point.
AP1 (Applicant): Now, moving on to two forensic points, because I know that my time is limited, there are two forensic points which actually tell a lot about this case.
AP1 (Applicant): And that is the forensic points that I have in mind are on page 5 at paragraph 6.
AP1 (Applicant): The two forensic points are these, and they are linked to both the points that I've been making.
AP1 (Applicant): The chief of police, this is paragraphs 132 and 138 of the, which I reproduce in my latest pleading.
AP1 (Applicant): They're to do with the attitude of the chief of police of the Republic of Cyprus.
AP1 (Applicant): He said, in effect, I'm not talking to the policemen on the other side.
AP1 (Applicant): I'm not even prepared to talk to them.
AP1 (Applicant): I'm not even prepared to meet up with them, let alone cooperate.
AP1 (Applicant): You can't cooperate, you can't begin to cooperate if you're not talking to someone, if you are in denial about the existence of someone.
AP1 (Applicant): In my submission, on the facts, there's obviously been not only a failure to cooperate, but a failure to contemplate cooperation.
AP1 (Applicant): And he said that in those paragraphs that he's not even talking to them, because it would be recognition of a pseudo state, I think.
AP1 (Applicant): Now, I don't want to repeat the submissions that I made earlier, but that is, in my submission, not the correct attitude, because, and this is the forensic point, in 2001, this court decided in an interstate case, Cyprus versus Turkey, they decided that dealing with one another to preserve human rights is not recognition.
AP1 (Applicant): It doesn't, it's overridden by human rights considerations.
AP1 (Applicant): I would add another point, which I think is important in this case, is that when one policeman talks to another one about a case, that's not recognition anyway.
AP1 (Applicant): It's not recognition in fact.
AP1 (Applicant): I mean, recognition means some kind of official.
AP1 (Applicant): The police officers do not represent their country, and therefore, there would have been nothing wrong with this policeman talking to one another about, let alone very shortly after the Cyprus and Turkey case decided that actually this would not be recognition.
AP1 (Applicant): In other words, the Republic of Cyprus government was not following the decision in Cyprus versus Turkey.
AP1 (Applicant): It was not engaged in follow up.
AP1 (Applicant): That's so far as the Republic of Cyprus side is concerned.
AP1 (Applicant): As far as the TRNC, the Turkish side is concerned, there's a very interesting, there are some very interesting evidential points at paragraph 130.
AP1 (Applicant): 130 is on page 5.
AP1 (Applicant): I make references on page 5 at small Roman numeral 2.
AP1 (Applicant): The Turkish side had a very sort of, a very ambivalent view.
AP1 (Applicant): At one and the same time, they were telling the Republic of Cyprus through, I think, through an envoy.
AP1 (Applicant): There was a non-paper sent to him on 20, to the president of Cyprus, of the Republic.
AP1 (Applicant): 25th January, you'll find this at footnote 4 on page 5.
AP1 (Applicant): A note was being sent by the Turkish side saying, citing rather, citing articles in the Republic of Cyprus convention, Constitution, saying in effect to the president of Cyprus that actually, under the Cyprus Constitution, I think, Article 158 or something like that, he was saying that under the Republic of Cyprus Constitution, the judiciary to try this case, if it were to come to trial, has to comprise only Turkish Cypriot judges.
AP1 (Applicant): Because according to this Constitution of Cyprus, where the victim is Turkish and the alleged perpetrator is Turkish, in those circumstances, the judges must be Turkish.
AP1 (Applicant): But of course, the TRNC official who made this, and indeed the attorney general on the TRNC side repeated it later, he was citing the Republic of Cyprus Constitution, not the TRNC Constitution.
AP1 (Applicant): He was citing, and therefore, he was accepting that actually, he was accepting the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus.
AP1 (Applicant): Because he was saying under that Constitution, it should be Turkish Cypriot judges.
AP1 (Applicant): So in my submission, these two points, these two forensic points, make the point that was also made by the court below, the chamber.
AP1 (Applicant): Because the chamber below made two important points.
AP1 (Applicant): The first, the one that I've already mentioned, this is a very simple case on the facts.
AP1 (Applicant): The second important point was that actually, the two sides, over a period of about, I think, eight years, were engaged with each other in bad faith.
AP1 (Applicant): So it's not only failure to contemplate cooperation, it is, and this is a finding of fact which has not been challenged, as I understand it.
AP1 (Applicant): As I understand it, there is no challenge to the factual challenge to the bad faith.
AP1 (Applicant): There's nothing worse in my submission.
AP1 (Applicant): In negotiations of this sort, concerned as they were with the right to life, the murder of a young girl, for parties to be engaged with each other in bad faith.
AP1 (Applicant): A bad faith, said the court below, to the extent where so much time has passed, the evidence is now deteriorating, and the chances of getting the perpetrators of this dreadful murder to punishment are becoming less and less.
AP1 (Applicant): And this because of bad faith.
AP1 (Applicant): I move on to my third point, if I may, and that is to do with the nature of the duty to cooperate.
AP1 (Applicant): That, of course, is before you in the jurisprudence of the court.
AP1 (Applicant): Possible I may go?
AP1 (Applicant): May I be so bold as to ask how much time do I have?
AP1 (Applicant): Because I'm ...
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Minister Rizza, but you have less than three minutes.
AP1 (Applicant): I can deal with it.
AP1 (Applicant): I can deal with it in three minutes for this reason.
AP1 (Applicant): The law is clear because it's in the cases that you have before you.
AP1 (Applicant): The cases you have before you are O'Loughlin, Rantziff, and Cummings, I think.
AP1 (Applicant): And basically, in my submission, the court below was absolutely right when it said that where there are, I think the way they put it is where two territories, in this case, in Cyprus, are implicated, not used in the sort of criminal sense, but if they're intertwined in such a way as they are in Cyprus, and as they are in Ireland, in Ireland also, where you have a situation where you have criminals, murderers, drug dealers, all sorts of people like that, terrorists moving from one country to the other, engaging in murder and pillage and plunder, and then returning, where two territories are so intertwined, so closely intertwined, the duty to cooperate is obvious.
AP1 (Applicant): What happened in Cyprus is what the court said.
AP1 (Applicant): It was not even actually very, it wasn't really great.
AP1 (Applicant): It was just a mild step forward.
AP1 (Applicant): What it said is that faced with that sort of situation, what the court was prepared to do was look at whether a minimum effort were possible.
AP1 (Applicant): And if it were, whether the parties engaged in a minimum level of cooperation.
AP1 (Applicant): And it found, as a fact, that these two sides, for political reasons, for perfectly good political reasons, I don't know.
AP1 (Applicant): But for political reasons, they decided not to engage in the minimum.
AP1 (Applicant): And, in my submission, the court was absolutely right to decide so, and absolutely right to find against both countries.
AP1 (Applicant): I think my three minutes are over.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): If you want two minutes more, please, Miss Riza, go ahead for two minutes.
AP1 (Applicant): Oh, for two minutes?
AP1 (Applicant): Well, I really have finished actually, because otherwise I'll have to go back and it's untidy.
AP1 (Applicant): I think I have finished.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Okay, thank you very much.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Mr. Riza, I call Mrs. Montgomery, please.
GR2 (Government): beginning on the 20th of July, 1974, over 40,000 Turkish troops, tanks, air forces, invaded the island of Cyprus.
GR2 (Government): They occupied about 40% of the northern landmass.
GR2 (Government): Turkey confined thousands of Greek Cypriots to detention centers and prisons.
GR2 (Government): Turkish troops killed and tortured civilians and raped women.
GR2 (Government): Turkey detained or murdered about 2,000 missing Greek Cypriots.
GR2 (Government): It forced more than 170,000 people from their homes.
GR2 (Government): The troops looted and robbed.
GR2 (Government): They vandalized homes and cultural centers.
GR2 (Government): Property was destroyed and expropriated.
GR2 (Government): And Turkey has taken no real steps by way of reparation for these wrongs.
GR2 (Government): It has not implemented the decision of this court in Cyprus and Turkey.
GR2 (Government): It has not paid the just satisfaction awarded by this court in the Vanava and Zenedi's arrest cases.
GR2 (Government): And although it has cooperated to an extent in identifying missing persons in suspected burial sites in the north, no measures have been taken to ensure accountability for the perpetrators.
GR2 (Government): Indeed, as you know, since 2016, it's indicated a general intention to derogate under Article 15.
GR2 (Government): Even now, the population in the north is increasingly dominated by Turks and Turkey.
GR2 (Government): Cypriots and Maronites still living in the north are discriminated against, including from participating in elections.
GR2 (Government): Turkey has taken steps to obliterate the rights of Cypriots.
GR2 (Government): Place names in the north have been changed without regard to the history of the place or the wishes of the people.
GR2 (Government): The publication of material containing place names, different from those specified in official maps and documents, has been criminalized.
GR2 (Government): Access to religious and cultural heritage sites are still restricted or denied.
GR2 (Government): The UN has commented on the massive destruction of sites and artifacts in the north.
GR2 (Government): To this day, the UN estimates there are nearly 30,000 Turkish troops in the northern part of Cyprus.
GR2 (Government): Thousands of armed Turkish troops confront the Cypriot National Guard along ceasefire lines and patrol the north.
GR2 (Government): 272,000 people remain internally displaced.
GR2 (Government): The UN talks, as you know, seeking reunification, broke down in July 2017 when Turkey refused to withdraw its troops from the north of the island.
GR2 (Government): So this case raises the central issue, whether a victim of state aggression has any obligation to cooperate with its aggressor.
GR2 (Government): We submit that the principle is clear.
GR2 (Government): There is and can be no possible obligation to do so.
GR2 (Government): The obligation upon the aggressor is to cease his wrongful acts and to withdraw.
GR2 (Government): Yet the decision of the third section would require the Republic of Cyprus to treat the Turkish occupiers of the north, TRNC, as if they were reliable, law-abiding, non-violent international partners with whom the Republic should share information and whose courts should be permitted to try citizens of the Republic of Cyprus for the murder of citizens of that republic on Cypriot territory.
GR2 (Government): So the examples that are given of cases between Ireland and the United Kingdom or even Greece and Turkey by Mr. Risa
GR2 (Government): ignore the fact that the Republic of Cyprus is being asked to cooperate with someone who is occupying its land, who's murdered its people.
GR2 (Government): So in the context where the crime is one of aggression and a refusal to withdraw from unlawful occupation, the public international legal obligation of non-recognition is not a meaningless international rule, but a vital protection against the wholesale violation of human rights that occurs in cases of state aggression.
GR2 (Government): And this is not a historic case of aggression.
GR2 (Government): It is one where international wrongful acts continue to this day.
GR2 (Government): If countries like Turkey can act within the European legal space with impunity in invading a country, murdering its citizens, and usurping power, human rights violations would occur much more frequently and with much greater severity.
GR2 (Government): So the aim of the rule against non-recognition in this context is not a bloodless public international law principle, but just as important as the aim of the European Convention on Human Rights.
GR2 (Government): Article 14.2, read together with Article 41 of the ILC articles
GR2 (Government): on the responsibility of states for internationally wrongful acts, provides that in relation to serious acts of aggression, invasion, and occupation, they will have a continuing character.
GR2 (Government): And there is an undiminished responsibility on Turkey under Article 30 of the ILC articles to bring to an immediate end its internationally wrongful conduct.
GR2 (Government): And third states and international organizations are therefore required not to aid and assist Turkey in maintaining this unlawful situation.
GR2 (Government): So the rule against non-recognition in this context is protective of human rights.
GR2 (Government): It is not some abstract principle.