The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) announced their decision earlier on Tuesday, condemning Turkey for violating the right to property, in the case concerning the refusal of the Turkish authorities to recognize the inherited property of a Greek citizen in Turkey.
The applicant, Greek national Maria Yianopoulou, who was born in 1924, following the death of her mother, was issued with an inheritance certificate by the Turkish courts for land situated in Turkey. In 1984 she asked for the administrative order imposed on the plot of land to be lifted, but following court judgments, the title to the land was transferred to the Treasury. After a long judicial battle starting in 1982, Yianopoulou’s multiple requests were finally dismissed by the Turkish Court of Cassation in 2001.
Relying on Article 1 of Protocol 1 (protection of property) of the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been signed and ratified also by Turkey, Mrs. Yianopoulou filed a complaint at the ECtHR for the refusal by the Turkish courts to recognize her capacity as her mother’s heir.
Yianopoulou died in March 2009. In July 2010, the Greek courts validated her will. In that will she had made a specific legacy of the land to Mr. Giropoulos, who expressed the wish to pursue the proceedings before the European Court.
The court’s decision finally achieved justice for Mrs. Yianopoulou even after death, recognizing that the decision of Turkey to deny the applicant’s right of the heir to the estate of her mother, had violated the fundamental right to property. The ECtHR reserved the right to subsequently determine the amount of compensation for moral and material damage.