ANOTHER big myth, peddled by our ultra-smart, bash-patriotic lawyers and politicians collapsed on Friday when the European Court of Human Rights recognised the pseudo Immovable Property Commission (IPC) in the pseudo-state.

This means that the 1000-plus applications made to the ECHR, by Greek Cypriot refugees would have to be submitted to the pseudo-IPC and if the compensation is deemed inadequate an appeal would have to be made to the pseudo High Administrative Court. Only after these domestic remedies have been exhausted would the ECHR have to examine a case.

In short, the big myth about the European solution, based on respect of human rights that could be secured through the courts has been exposed as big sham.

With their ruling, the ECHR judges unceremoniously chucked all the case files of Greek Cypriots, into the recycling bin and ensured they would not have to deal with the Cyprus property issue ever again. Even if an applicant exhausted all domestic remedies and went to the ECHR, I bet the judges would deem the case inadmissible.

And if anyone did not want to go to the pseudo-commission, he or she could wait for a political settlement of the Cyprob, the ECHR said in its ruling, adding that it could not offer solutions to a problem that should have been resolved politically.

It gets worse. The judges also made it clear that a property did not have to be returned to the owner – there could be an exchange or he could be compensated – as the passing of 35 years raised many questions about ownership claims etc.

Our establishment does not claim to have any legal expertise, but none is required to understand the ruling of the Court, which essentially said: “We are fed up of you Greek Cypriots, clogging up the Court with your cases and presuming that the Court has nothing better to do than deal with your pathetic problem, which you refuse to solve because you are too busy playing the uncompromising champions of human rights. Now you know that respect for human rights isn’t all it’s cracked out to be.”

 

THE DECISION was a fatal blow to the human rights sales pitch loved by our uncompromising, bash-patriotic lawyers, political leaders and Archbishop. What will they now say to the mugs they have been taking for a ride all these years with their hard sell about the European solution based on respect of all human rights?

With the ECHR telling us to go to hell, which court would they recommend we use to solve the Cyprob? Larnaca district court, the Nicosia labour court or the Paphos kangaroo court? We await DIKO’s legal expert Andreas Angelides, the great champion of legalism to tell us what form the legal liberation struggle would now take.

Former ECHR judge, Loucis Loucaides, who, a couple of weeks ago, was insisting on a TV show that it was possible for a solution to be based on respect of human rights, must tell us what we should do now. We need some new, false hope. Incidentally, why did he not give his old chums at the Court a call and urge them not recognise the pseudo-IPC.

What I would like to know is what all those bash-patriotic lawyers, who contributed to the Court’s decision by heroically encouraging hundreds of refugees to file cases against Turkey, would do. Will they return the fees charged to poor refugees now that the cases have been dumped, without even being opened?

It is the human right of refugees to be given back their money, but will their lawyers respect it?

 

HOPEFULLY this case will put an end to our insane habit of viewing everything as an issue of human rights at the expense of common sense.

Last week the Minister of Education Andreas Demetriou wrote to the Pascal English School, expressing his displeasure at its decision to suspend two students who had set up a web-site title ‘Pascal Federal Prison.’ In the web-site the kids encouraged others to bring explosives to school and posted sexually explicit comments about one of their teachers.

In his letter, Demetriou expressed his objections to the suspensions because “it went against the policy of forming active citizens who would talk and express themselves freely about issues that concern them…” He added that there should have been “respect for the students’ right to express themselves, judge and criticise the school.”

What about the kids having some respect for their school’s rules and accepting the punishment when they violate the rules? Obviously, forming active citizens who take responsibility for their actions is not an education ministry policy and it shows.

 

THE ABOVE case went to the minister after a complaint was filed by the kids’ parents to the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. These Commissioners, who suffer from a common sense deficiency, cause more problems than they solve, as Strovolos municipality recently found out.

The Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data, Youla Frangou ruled that Strovolos traffic wardens were not allowed to take photos of cars that were illegally parked because this violated the owner’s right to privacy. The mayor had ordered traffic wardens to photograph cars parked on pavements, because there had been many cases of owners denying they were illegally parked and refusing to pay the fine.

The municipality respected Ms Frangou’s pitiful decision, which defended the right of drivers violate parking laws with impunity, but has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court. The only human right that we do not have a Commissioner to protect is the right to stupidity, as it is freely exercised and respected by everyone.

 

WE SAW this right being exercised, in all its glory, after the publication of the interview given by Turkish PM Erdogan last weekend. The three Greek Cypriot hacks who were present and reported Erdogan’s views in their respective newspapers became the target of their colleagues (envy may have played a part) and the bash-patriotic politicians.

They were accused of being messengers of Erdogan’s propaganda, of being chosen because they would not ask difficult questions, of treating the PM with respect and other such nonsense. In short, they were dangerously lacking in patriotism for becoming accessories to Erdogan’s communications game. In the end they became the story as nothing the PM said could be taken seriously by our hacks.

 

PHIL’S leading commentator Arsitos Micahelides said it was more important to read what “the Greek Cypriot journalists said about their political success in meeting the Turkish PM than what Erdogan said.” This is a novel journalistic approach – ignore Erdogan’s propaganda, but attack the hacks because they expressed some admiration for him.

If the unpatriotic hacks had written that the PM was a rude, aggressive, lying, arrogant Turk, holding an AK47 while he spoke, Phil’s commentator would have praised them for their excellent journalistic work. He may even have had time to impart his wisdom on Erdogan’s propaganda.

 

TURTLE-LOVER Yiorkos Perdikis also gave journalistic lessons to the hacks about the way they had presented the interview. He complained on a TV show that it was not reported in “classic format” of question and answer, implying that this was very suspicious. Why had the orthodox style of interview, not been used, the insufferably sel-important Perdikis asked again, as he had exposed a big scandal.

Simerini columnist and tough guy Costakis Antoniou also went for the hacks, who were “sold fairy tales” by Erdogan. “And our hacks, instead of throwing a shoe at him, like the Iraqi journalist had done, believed him and came to sell the same fairy tales to the Greek Cypriots.” The bit about the shoe was not Costakis’ idea. He had copied it from the previous day’s article written by Turkish Cypriot hack Sener Levent, who regularly throws his shoe at his interviewees, if he decides they are lying.

Attacking hacks for attacking other hacks and avoiding commenting on what Erdogan said, is pretty pathetic, I admit, but one of the three unpatriotic hacks has written a serious analysis elsewhere in the paper.

 

HALLELUJAH, the comrade president on Friday finally accepted that not all is not well with our economy and that we desperately need to take austerity measures. Not bad going considering we have been in recession for over a year.

These economic measures have become a running joke with our good friend Charilaos threatening to take some for months now, but always avoiding turning his words into deeds. Even at Tuesday’s big debate about the economy he again spoke about the need to take drastic measures but avoided saying when they would be ready.

You get the feeling that his comrade boss is employing the same methods for saving the economy as he does on the Cyprob talks. He likes things moving at a snail’s pace, without any suffocating time-frames. The difference is that while the Cyprob could wait a few more decades for a solution, the economy is already sinking and cannot wait for the comrade to find the courage to take a couple of unpopular decisions.

We may have to brace ourselves for bankruptcy, because on Tuesday Charilaos said that measures would be taken only after consultations with the social partners (unions) whose consent would be sought. The Cyprob may be solved before he secures the consent of the public sector unions to pay cuts.

 

IT IS DIFFICULT to take anything the government says about the economy seriously. On Tuesday night Charilaos told his audience that, as part of the government’s drive to save money welfare payments would be targeted, meaning only those who needed help would be getting it. On Wednesday morning the Council of Ministers, completely missed the target, when it decided that a special benefit would be paid to all families with three children, regardless of income.

 

WE’VE written before about Cyta’s ground-breaking early retirement scheme, which might not win any awards for business innovation, but will certainly be included in the catalogues of the stupidest ever business ideas.

The sheer stupidity of the scheme is a reflection of the level of intelligence that is usually represented on semi-governmental boards, which approve all sorts of lunatic ideas submitted to them by executives and union bosses.

I refer to the scheme by which a Cyta employee is entitled to stop work several years before reaching retirement age, but still receive all the salaries he or she would have earned had they carried on working. This scheme proved a big success, with 731 employees opting for it.

What were the chances of any senior-ranking employee refusing to take up an offer to be paid, up front, the total amount of money he would have received in wages, until he reached retirement age, with the added incentive of not having to work? Zero. As the Auditor-General remarked, at the House Committe meeting, “what sane person would not take all this money, without having to work?”

The question nobody asked was “what sane board director would approve such a scheme?”

 

CYTA CEO Fotis Savvides told the House committee that only one senior executive was paid his salary until retirement in full, while the rest of the early retirees were paid only 85 per cent of the total salaries they would have received.

This made the scheme seem a lot more rational. Despite only getting 85 per cent of all their salaries until retirement without working, 731 employees still made the big sacrifice and opted for the early retirement scheme, at a cost of €35m to Cyta.

This was a good deal according to Savvides, because for Cyta, the annual cost per retiree was €48,000 whereas the average annual salary at Cyta (at 2008 prices) was €58,000; it saved €10,000 a year per worker, he claimed.

But the position vacated by the early retiree was now costing Cyta €106,000 (retiree’s wage plus his replacement’s), instead of €58,000 – a significant saving.

 

MINISTER OF Plafond Antonis Paschalides has kept very quiet in the last few days, despite the fact that petrol companies have increased pump prices by three cents per litre. Why has he not imposed a plafond? If a plafond was justified for profiteering of one cent per litre by petrol stations, surely it is an imperative now that the profiteering is three cents per litre. We want our plafond?