Ahmet Djavit An with Kutlu Adali

Last Edited March 2003

Ahmet Djavit An, a pediatrician and a researcher/writer living in north Cyprus took first Republic of Cyprus (along with others, Application No. 18270/91, by Ahmet Cavit AN and Others against Cyprus) and following the rejection by ECHR , took Turkey (Application No. 20652/92 by Ahmet DJAVIT AN against Turkey) to European Human Rights Court. In February 2003, ECHR ruled in favour of Ahmet Djavit An and established that the ban on permissions for him to cross the "green-line" to have meetings with Greek Cypriots was a violation of his human rights. The case established, once more, that Republic of Turkey was solely responsible for the actions of the Turkish Cypriot administration in north Cyprus.

The case is a landmark case following other judgements by ECHR regarding the situation in Cyprus. This case can potentially pave the way for other Turkish Cypriots who are subject to irregular and illegal ban on their freedom of movement to follow a similar remedy.

Below are a supplementary list of documents related to this case:

In judgement summary, the court summarized the relevant articles from European Human rights convention as:

Article 10

The Court noted that the question of freedom of expression in the case
could not be separated from that of freedom of assembly. The
protection of personal opinions was one of the objectives of freedom
of peaceful assembly as enshrined in Article 11. It was therefore
unnecessary to examine the issue under Article 10 separately. The
Court decided, however, to consider Article 10 when examining and
interpreting Article 11.

Article 11

The Court noted that it could take into account only the period from 8
March 1992 until 14 April 1998, a period of six years and one
month. During that period the Turkish Government refused to grant a
substantial number of permits to the applicant; in particular, only 6
out of 46 requests were granted. In some cases, permits were granted
to other people who had submitted requests, but not to the
applicant. Between 2 February 1996 and 14 April 1998 the applicant was
refused all permits requested to attend bi-communal meetings in
southern Cyprus (10 in total).


The Court considered that all the meetings the applicant wished to
attend were designed to promote dialogue and an exchange of ideas and
opinions between Turkish Cypriots living in the north and Greek
Cypriots living in the south, with the hope of securing peace on the
island. The refusals to grant these permits to the applicant in effect
barred his participation in bi-communal meetings, preventing him from
peacefully assembling with people from both communities.  Accordingly,
the Court concluded that there had been an interference with the
applicant’s rights to freedom of peaceful assembly.


As there seemed to be no law regulating the issuing of permits to
Turkish Cypriots living in northern Cyprus to cross the "green line"
into southern Cyprus to assemble peacefully with Greek Cypriots, the
manner in which restrictions were imposed on the applicant’s
exercise of his freedom of assembly was not "prescribed by law". There
had, therefore, been a violation of Article 11.


Article 13

The Court observed that, as the Turkish Government had failed to show
that any of the domestic remedies available would have been effective,
there had been a violation of Article 13.