TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
GR2 (Government): So the status of the Muslim minority in Thrace as regards these specific issues and as was stated above is completely different.
GR2 (Government): It's different, and it is governed by the minority provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, which, as I said, does not concern the Jewish community in Greece.
GR2 (Government): To conclude, Mr. President, I would
GR2 (Government): like to refer again that the only treaty that regulates the status of the Muslim minority in Thrace is the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923.
GR2 (Government): And let me say that, once again, that this treaty does not mandate the application of the Sharia law.
GR2 (Government): I thank you for your attention.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Mrs. Telalian.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I call now Mr. Ktistakis.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Please, you have the floor.
AP1 (Applicant): on behalf of the applicant, we would like to thank the court for the chance it has given us to orally present our arguments before the ground chamber.
AP1 (Applicant): My colleague, Professor Tsitsilikis, an ex-student, an ex-lecturer of the law faculty at the University of Reyes in Dermest, the region where the applicant is living, will refer to the substantive issues of the case.
AP1 (Applicant): Myself, ex-student, and currently assistant professor at the same law faculty in Reyes, I will argue that the application satisfies all the admissibility conditions, and I will answer to the court questions.
AP1 (Applicant): We are both delighted to accept the assistance of Denise Mehmet, a Greek lawyer and member of the Muslim minority of Reyes, who is a specialist in Sharia law.
AP1 (Applicant): Indeed, Mr. President, this case presents major particularities.
AP1 (Applicant): While at first glance, it appears to be an inheritance rights case, in its essence, it furthers concerns the right of a member of a Muslim minority not to be subject to Sharia law.
AP1 (Applicant): This is why the applicant would wish to respectively insist on her right to be subject to civil inheritance law, like any other Greek or European citizen.
AP1 (Applicant): At this point, allow me to draw the court's attention to the following two basic remarks.
AP1 (Applicant): Greece is the only European state that applies the Sharia law to its citizens.
AP1 (Applicant): Relevant is the judgment of the ground chamber in the case of Refaq Party versus Turkey of 2003.
AP1 (Applicant): Second remark, Greece is the only European state where the Muftis have competence to adjudicate on certain family and inheritance disputes between Greek Muslims.
AP1 (Applicant): No other European state recognized to Muftis or Orthodox priests or Catholic priests similar judicial competence.
AP1 (Applicant): Relevant to my remark is the judgment of the court in case Pellegrini versus Italy of 2001.
AP1 (Applicant): At first sight, the respondent gives the impression that it aims to safeguard the interests of the Greek Muslim minority.
AP1 (Applicant): And this by referring to several minority treaties.
AP1 (Applicant): On the base of the court case law in Greek cases, my colleague will argue that some of these provisions have no binding force today.
AP1 (Applicant): In any case, we would like to emphasize at this point that the applicant doesn't claim a special legal status or an exemption from the general measures applying to Greece.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant claims the application of general measures on her behalf in their application of the Greek civil law.
AP1 (Applicant): Then the respondent's argumentation is relevant to the applicant's claims.
AP1 (Applicant): As to the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies, the application was introduced before the court on March 2014.
AP1 (Applicant): Some months before, in October 2013, the Greek court of cassation had rejected all the substantive appeal reasons raised by the applicant concerning the compatibility of Sharia inheritance law with the Greek constitution and the convention.
AP1 (Applicant): The judgment was definitive and final in the sense that according to Article 562, paragraph 1 of the Greek civil procedure code, the Greek court of cassation could not come back and re-examine the same appeal reasons.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, the applicant's substantive arguments were rejected definitively by the court of cassation in October 2013.
AP1 (Applicant): It is true that the applicant had appealed for a second time before the court of cassation.
AP1 (Applicant): And by its judgment, 556 of 2017, the Greek court of cassation had again rejected the second appeal of the applicant.
AP1 (Applicant): The reason of this second appeal was the relevant objection of the opponent party, the sisters of the testator, before the Turkish court.
AP1 (Applicant): Actually, Mr. President, the proceedings
AP1 (Applicant): before the Istanbul court of first instance have been postponed to January 18, 2018, waiting the court precision about this case, this application.
AP1 (Applicant): My Turkish colleague who is in our team, Mr. Omer Faruk
AP1 (Applicant): Cansat, who is in charge of the proceedings in Turkey, is here with us.
AP1 (Applicant): And following to any relevant question of the members of the court, he will kindly provide any additional information.
AP1 (Applicant): And the relevant hearing is already given to the secretary.
AP1 (Applicant): As to the admissibility condition about the applicant, if applicant is a victim of violation, the will under dispute was declared public by decision of the first instance court of Thrace, of Komotini.
AP1 (Applicant): Following to this decision, a public Greek notary has prepared an inheritance acceptance, which was signed by the applicant.
AP1 (Applicant): The notary act was notified to the Greek tax administration, and the applicant had paid the relevant tax.
AP1 (Applicant): Finally, the applicant registered the inheritance properties before the Greek public deed office.
AP1 (Applicant): Finally, two courts, the first instance court of Komotini and the court of appeal of Thrace before the court of Cassation, had ruled that the dispute public was valid and that the applicant had inherited the properties of the testator.
AP1 (Applicant): In other words, descending inheritance was already accomplished.
AP1 (Applicant): As to the third question of the court, since 1982, Greek marriage can be civil, religious, or both.
AP1 (Applicant): Before this date, all the Greek marriages were only religious.
AP1 (Applicant): Then, when the applicant married the testator, the Greek legal order provided only religious marriage.
AP1 (Applicant): Today, under Article 1,367 of the Greek Civil Code law, weddings celebrated by minister of no religious, including mufti, are assimilated to civil ones.
AP1 (Applicant): Relative to my remark is the paragraph 50 of the judgment of the court in case Serif versus Greece of 1999.
AP1 (Applicant): Nevertheless, the Greek civil courts provide that the Muslim character of the religious marriage, in their marriage before the mufti, is an irrevocable choice of the spouses for the application of the Sharia law on their behalf.
AP1 (Applicant): This is the conclusion of the number 178 of 2015 judgment of the Thrace Court of Appeal, which costs the number 1002 of 2012 judgment of the Xanthe I Eastern Court.
AP1 (Applicant): And these two cases have been referred by the responder.
AP1 (Applicant): The latter, the First Eastern Court, had provided that the Muslim marriage doesn't prejudice the choice of the Sharia law for the family matters.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, as to the fore question of the court,
AP1 (Applicant): according to law 1920 of 1991, Sharia law applies only to Greek Muslims living in Thrace.
AP1 (Applicant): Nevertheless, according to the judgment of the Greek Court of Cassation, number 1723 of 1980, a judgment mentioned in paragraph 23 at Serif case, the Sharia law also applies to Greek Muslims living in Greek regions other than Thrace.
AP1 (Applicant): As to the sixth question of the court, the planned reform is a draft law, is not a law yet.
AP1 (Applicant): The planned reform is not related to the applicant's case because the judgment of the Greek Court of Cassation concerns private dispute.
AP1 (Applicant): And it is a final one.
AP1 (Applicant): Then the government reform cannot redress the violation of African rights.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, Greece hasn't yet provide the reopening of civil procedure after a judgment of the court.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, the planned reform
AP1 (Applicant): is contrary to the Greek and European public order.
AP1 (Applicant): The resignation of the Muslim women from her fundamental rights guaranteed by the Greek constitution and the convention in order to submit the case before the Mufti is invalid because it is contrary to public order.
AP1 (Applicant): Relevant is the case Costantin Markin versus Russia of 2012.
AP1 (Applicant): And now, Mr. President, distinguished members
AP1 (Applicant): of the court, I pass the floor to my colleague.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Mr. Ktistakis.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I call Professor Tsitselikis, please, to the floor.
AP2 (Applicant): Mr. President, distinguished members of the court,
AP2 (Applicant): I shall attempt to highlight some aspects of the merits of the present case.
AP2 (Applicant): The three muftis of Greece apply sharia law over cases of family and inheritance disputes in relation to Muslims who are residents of race.
AP2 (Applicant): The law in force of 1991 reiterates the content of the previous law of 1920, but alters the modality of selection of mufti.
AP2 (Applicant): The legal roots of these norms are eventually a series of international instruments.
AP2 (Applicant): The Treaty of Constantinople of 1881, the Convention of Athens of 1913, the Treaty of Sèvres, and the Treaty of Lausanne that came into force together in 1923.
AP2 (Applicant): All of them regulate the personal status of the Muslims according to the customs of the community.
AP2 (Applicant): The Treaty of Athens is the only one to mention explicitly the mufti's jurisdiction organ and sharia as the applicable law.
AP2 (Applicant): This parallel legal order was maintained in Greece also after 1946 when the civil code was universally applicable.
AP2 (Applicant): Answering your question number seven, dealing with the personal status of the Jewish community, it's true that it was repealed by the new civil law in 1946 because of the extermination of the community by the Nazi regime and the lack of a claim from the remaining community to reestablish the Beth Dinn courts.
AP2 (Applicant): On the contrary, the Muslim community and minority enjoyed institutional continuity, including sharia law and mufti's courts, and there was no question to make any change of it.
AP2 (Applicant): They already mentioned international treaties do not provide for a compulsive jurisdiction of the mufti or for the mandatory applicability of sharia law.
AP2 (Applicant): Even if such an interpretation was acceptable in the first half of the 20th century, the new international law on human rights stemming from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the relevant treaties of the UN and the Council of Europe established a new legal order.
AP2 (Applicant): In that new legal environment, the mandatory referral to sharia law by the court of cassation against the wish of the litigant and applicant, by ignoring the universal applicability of the Greek civil law, contradicts the European Convention of Human Rights, Article 6 and 14, the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, Article 14, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Article 1, 2, 15, 16.
AP2 (Applicant): These international obligations are the foundation of the present constitutional Greek legal order on human rights.
AP2 (Applicant): Coming to your question number two, indeed, Article 30 of the Convention of Vienna on application of successive treaties relating to the same subject is of key importance.
AP2 (Applicant): As your court has said, the convention cannot be interpreted in a vacuum, but must be interpreted in harmony with the general principles of international law.
AP2 (Applicant): Account should be taken of any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties, and in particular, the rules concerning the international protection of human rights, Judgment Nada versus Switzerland of 2012.
AP2 (Applicant): Diversion commitments must therefore be harmonized so that they produce effects that are fully in accordance with the convention.
AP2 (Applicant): A pluralistic society demands special treatment for those who have special needs.
AP2 (Applicant): Minority rights are related to minority characteristics, such as language, national belonging, or religion.
AP2 (Applicant): They are not just tolerated, but often need positive action from the state authorities.
AP2 (Applicant): However, the enjoyment of minority rights cannot contravene fundamental human rights.
AP2 (Applicant): In that sense, the Greek law that provides for the move to jurisdiction has to be seen in light to contemporary human rights law, introduced within the Greek legal order as norms of higher hierarchical position, according to Article 28 of the Constitution.
AP2 (Applicant): And this is the meaning of Article 30 of the Vienna Convention.
AP2 (Applicant): Whatever is the legal content of the personal status of the Muslims in Greece, whether there was an exclusive jurisdiction of the mufti, an exclusion of Muslims from the applicability of civil law, or not, the emergence of the new international law of human rights, gradually, after the 50s, draws a hard core of norms that shaped, accordingly, all previous commitments.
AP2 (Applicant): The baseline established by the Greek Constitution and the Convention, and the norms that forbid discrimination on the basis of sex, do not allow, at any ground, implementation of discriminatory measures, especially against the will of the recipient of the rights.
AP2 (Applicant): As the Commissioner for Human Rights, Hammerberg, put it in 2009, any obligation that may arise out of the Treaty of Lausanne, or any other early 20th century treaty, should be viewed and interpreted in full and effective compliance with the subsequent obligation undertaken by the ratification of European international human rights instruments.
AP2 (Applicant): I'm not going to discuss the issue about the Treaty of Athens, because I think we agree with the government, so to save some time of your court.
AP2 (Applicant): But one important remark.
AP2 (Applicant): Moreover, your court has considered that in view of the fundamental importance of the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sex, no waiver of the right not to be subjected to discrimination on such grounds can be accepted, as it would be counter to an important public interest.
AP2 (Applicant): I mention again the judgment Marquine versus Russia, 2007.
AP2 (Applicant): Public interest, thus, emanates from safeguarding of these norms and principles to all, with no discrimination.
AP2 (Applicant): Public interest should aim at preserving legal certainty and legal predictability.
AP2 (Applicant): Notice the respondent argued in their final observation that public interest aims at maintaining a closed legal order for the sake of minority rights protection.
AP2 (Applicant): The ambiguity as for which law was applicable in the present case created, indeed, legal uncertainty, which caused lack of foreseeability and legal predictability.
AP2 (Applicant): Legal certainty is a foundation of rule of law, as your court has said in the case Okiay and others, versus Turkey, judgment of 2005.
AP2 (Applicant): According to the Minister of Education, the expected amendment to the law on muftis aims at the removal of the longstanding uncertainty of law, with reference to the inheritance rights of the Muslims of race.
AP2 (Applicant): The recourse to Sharia cannot be mandatory.
AP2 (Applicant): This is not an issue of academic interest, as the respondent named it, but regards the essence of the legal dispute of the present case.
AP2 (Applicant): The mandatory implementation of Sharia brings severe breaches to the free development of personality and inheritance freedom, and thus infringes both Article 6 and one of the first protocol.
AP2 (Applicant): The discriminatory content of Sharia law, anyway, has triggered in the past 20 years serious concerns of a series of international bodies that propose the abolition of Sharia in Greece.
AP2 (Applicant): Just to mention one, Resolution 1704 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
AP2 (Applicant): However, if legal pluralism is guaranteed through the personal status of the Muslims of race, as it stands today, one condition should be observed.
AP2 (Applicant): The free will of any Muslim to choose the general legal order.
AP2 (Applicant): The possibility to opt for the civil law is fundamental for the freedom of Muslims to evoke minority rights or not.
AP2 (Applicant): Minority rights are optional, not obligatory.
AP2 (Applicant): Their rights, not obligations.
AP2 (Applicant): By no means, Muslims of race have to be subjected only and exclusively to the minority protection scheme.
AP2 (Applicant): They may choose to attend public schools, not the minority schools, if they want so.
AP2 (Applicant): They may choose civil law, not Sharia law.
AP2 (Applicant): As far as schooling is concerned, the law made clear already in 1977 that Muslim students can attend both public and minority school.
AP2 (Applicant): The proposed amendment to the law on the Muftis makes it clear as far as Sharia law is concerned and vindicates our position.
AP2 (Applicant): The imposition of a certain jurisdiction is at least problematic, especially when the applicable Sharia law is not compatible with the principle of equality.
AP2 (Applicant): As your court said, if a certain juridical system is imposed on the individual on the basis of religious affiliation, it would contradict the general principles and values of the European order and democratic society.
AP2 (Applicant): Refah Partisi versus Turkey, 2003.
AP2 (Applicant): At that point, one question comes up.
AP2 (Applicant): Does the deprivation for a Muslim of race to draft a public will according to the civil law present a lawful strategy to cope with legal pluralism, or does it constitute plain discrimination?
AP2 (Applicant): A lawful approach is to ensure a balance, an accommodation of different social realities in the same legal order.
AP2 (Applicant): The coexistence of different legal systems could be seen as a loadable case of pluralism of law, so long as it ensures everyone a choice to opt for one or the other legal system under one sole condition, that the principle of equality is observed with no exceptions.
AP2 (Applicant): This is a threshold that cannot be trespassed, as it is safeguarded by the public policy.
AP2 (Applicant): This is what was infringed by the Court of Cassation at the present case, as far as Article 6 and 1 of the first protocol is concerned.
AP2 (Applicant): This is what the expected amendment to the Mufti's law is bringing as a remedy.
AP2 (Applicant): And this remedy is in accordance with Article 20 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right of everyone to legal protection by the courts.
AP2 (Applicant): And Article 94, Paragraph 3, stipulating that civil disputes are submitted to the civil courts.
AP2 (Applicant): The judgment of the Court of Cassation bypassed the Greek Constitution and declined to apply the civil law which is applicable to all.
AP2 (Applicant): The applicant was a litigant before the Greek courts, and thus her own rights were infringed.
AP2 (Applicant): Article 6, for a fair trial, is applicable to her, not to the deceased husband.
AP2 (Applicant): The public will, drafted by her Muslim husband, indeed, and gendered legal effects and properties rights to her.
AP2 (Applicant): She is the recipient of rights in accordance with the public will.
AP2 (Applicant): This is why she became subject to a series of norms of civil law that the Court of Cassation denied to apply in her case.
AP2 (Applicant): Therefore, the applicant is herself a victim of violation of Article 6 and 1 of the first protocol because she is a Muslim wife.
AP2 (Applicant): Otherwise, the Sharia law would not have been applicable anyway.
AP2 (Applicant): The Court of Cassation upheld the segregation of Greek civil and Muslim law among citizens who are seen as recipients of a parallel right to a fair trial, attributable according to their religion, between non-Muslims and Muslims.
AP2 (Applicant): This amounts to division between Greek citizens on religious grounds.
AP2 (Applicant): The provision of the applicant to have access to civil court and civil law, as the judgment of the Court of Cassation upholds, amounts to denial of justice, which is arbitrary and brought a radical disturbance to the fair trial character of the proceedings.
AP2 (Applicant): The major reason for this is that there was no law that dictates the mandatory implementation of Sharia law to a Muslim testator, nor does the Treaty of Athens, nor the Treaty of Alsan, stipulate the mandatory implementation of Sharia law.
AP2 (Applicant): In the present case, there was already two court judgments that have said that the will was valid.
AP2 (Applicant): Due to the judgment of the Court of Cassation, the applicant is deprived from a 3 4th of the inherited properties which would belong to her according to the civil law.
AP2 (Applicant): But by two court judgments, the first instance court of commotiny, the court of appeals of thrace, the applicant was seen as the legitimate heir of the properties according to a valid will.
AP2 (Applicant): As my colleague mentioned earlier, the applicant has established real and legitimate expectations to enjoy fully her rights over the properties inherited on the basis of the civil code according to the public will that her husband drafted before he passed away.
AP2 (Applicant): It is important to underline the fact that there is a well-established practice by the notaries of the region.
AP2 (Applicant): They do accept public wills by Muslims, as there is no legal norm or circular by the ministry saying that Muslims cannot draft a public will.
AP2 (Applicant): As an average, every month, more than 50 wills, public wills, are drafted before a notary in Rodopi and Xanthi, another 20 in Evros.
AP2 (Applicant): In total, in the past 20 years, more than 2,600 wills have been drafted, producing legal effects within the Greek legal order.
AP2 (Applicant): According to judgment 25, 2017, so very, very recent, from the first instance court of Rodopi, the scope of the, I quote, the scope of the Treaty of Lausanne was to guarantee the rights of the minority, not to deprive the members of the minority from their civil law rights, according to which a Muslim can draft a public will, as any other Greek citizen.
AP2 (Applicant): The interference to the applicant's right to property should be provided by the law and be proportionate to a legitimate scope in accordance to Article 1, Protocol 1.
AP2 (Applicant): The mandatory failure by the Court of Cassation on the basis of religion to special law, instead of the universal civil law, introduces differentiated treatment as far as the right to ownership is concerned, and therefore constitutes discrimination, according to Article 14.
AP2 (Applicant): In other words, imposing Islamic interstate succession is a disproportionate measure and has no legal basis.
AP2 (Applicant): Introducing discrimination cannot be seen as a legitimate scope either.
AP2 (Applicant): The judgment of the Court of Cassation amended drastically the share of the inheritance to the detriment of the applicant, implementing direct discrimination on the ground of membership to a minority and religion.
AP2 (Applicant): The applicant has been seen as a Muslim woman.
AP2 (Applicant): If she were not a Muslim, the Sharia law would not be applicable.
AP2 (Applicant): If she were not a woman, the inherited lot would be higher.
AP2 (Applicant): Mr. President, distinguished members of the Court,