European Court Finds Catholicosate’s Suit Inadmissible
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia (headquartered in Antelias, Lebanon) filed a lawsuit on April 25, 2015, against the government of Turkey, seeking the return of its historic seat in Sis (present-day Kozan district of the Adana Province), which was confiscated in 1921.
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit was filed in the Constitutional Court of the Turkish Republic. The claim raised issues of property rights that lower courts would not have jurisdiction to overturn the maze of laws adopted by Turkey in 1915 and succeeding years. At the recommendation of the Justice Ministry of Turkey, the Constitutional Court referred the Armenian Church lawsuit to the lower courts. The lawyers for the Catholicosate of Cilicia, however, decided to appeal the case directly to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, on Dec. 8, 2016.
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Well here goes – sure there are constitutional issues and the point of law but do these highly educated judges have any idea what they are dealing with or what an individual has to deal with and specially the Armenian case? Those people in turkey have laws of convenience – the ECHR MUST KNOW THIS and yet fail to pursue the legal status of this case. Human rights? do they understand the true meaning of this? or is it another convenient way of deflecting the TRUTH?
This is very disappointing and deeply disturbing.
A single judge in the ECHR has made an extremely bad decision without recognizing the fact that the suit has absolutely no chance of being heard in the Turkish courts;
What a sham. Highly unjust and legally complex.
I am not a lawyer- but there must be a legal recourse.
Vart Adjemian
Before any case is brought to the ECHR, local legal remedies must first be exhausted, starting with the lowest court and ending with the highest court of the country being sued. Those are the ECHR’s basic rules. If the Catholicosate of Cilicia did not want to follow ECHR rules, why did it bring a case to the ECHR? Did it really expect a one-off rule for it and a completely different rule for the hundreds of other case brought to the ECHC only after prolonged progression through other courts ended in an unsatisfactory way, not to mention the tens of thousands of other cases still progressing through the courts of various countries and whose plaintifs would also demand to go direct to the ECHR if the Catholicosate of Cilicia was granted this exemption. The Catholicosate of Cilicia have not detailed how much, or even if any, of its 900-page application was devoted to arguing that a route through Turkish courts was entirely impossible. It has also not cited any precedents for a direct to ECHR route. Are there any precedents for this? Have any attempts, however small, been tried through Turkish courts? So it should publish the submission in order to not appear to have brought an impossible case simply for self-publicity.