ECHR condemned Greece in lawsuit initiated by 14 Western Thrace Turks with Turkish nationals

ABTTF President Halit Habipoğlu: We’ll follow up the whether or not implementation of the ECHR decision by Greece

On 3rd July 2012 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Greece in lawsuit initiated by 14 Western Thrace Turks living in Ankara with Turkish nationals.
ECHR judged in suit of law brought by the beneficiaries of owners of land situated on the outskirts of the village of Glyphada in the region of Rodopi, Buyan and Others v. Greece (No. 28644/08), that Greece breached the Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights witch protects the right to a fair trial and the Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about protection of property.

ECHR decided that Greece has to pay 4800 € pecuniary compensation to each of the applicants Hulusi Zaim Buyan, Ertuğrul Gazi Buyan, Zeynep Nergis Buyan, Gül Kız Buyan, Süheyla Akbulak, Nevin Seval, Fatma Şehbal Öktem’e and 4000 € non-pecuniary compensation to Sabiha Aral.

Greece has to pay about 37 000 € compensation to 8 of the 14 applicants

The applicants claimed to the ECHR that the amound awarded as compensation for expropriaton didn’t reflect the actual value of their properties and that the compensation had not been paid promptly as a result of the wrongful conduct of the Bank of Greece which had forced them to take action in the Greek courts to have inheritance certificates issued.

The president of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) said “the expropriation of the lands belonging to the members of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace under the actual value, is one of the most important problems in the field of property rights that the Western Thrace Turks has to face. We want the case ‘Buyan and Others’ will get precedent in Western Thrace where are a lot of situations in which many compensations of exprpriation are not paid on time or not at all. ”