The New Anatolian, Turkey
Jan 18 2008

Commission passes vetoed articles of foundations law without any
change

The New Anatolian / Ankara
18 January 2008

Designed to enable the country’s non-Muslim religious minorities to
regain their property rights, the controversial niine articles of the
Foundations Law which was vetoed earlier by former President Ahmet
Necdet Sezer has been approved at the parliamentary commission
without any change on Wednesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Hayati Yazici said the properties confiscated
by the Turkish state after 1974 will be given back to owners after
the law becomes effective. He said the value of those will be paid in
case it was sold. Political opposition parties in Parliament strongly
criticized the decision of the commission.

In late 2006, the law was passed at the Parliament after months of
fierce debate. Former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer partially vetoed
the bill and sent the "foundations law" back to Parliament for
revision. In his partial veto, Sezer declared that nine provisions of
the law were incompatible with the Turkish constitution, the 1923
Lausanne Treaty or existing Turkish laws.

The bill would have permitted minority religious foundations to
reclaim dozens of valuable properties confiscated by the Turkish
state over the past 33 years. Essentially, the law enabled minority
foundations to reclaim their confiscated properties from the state,
including even those registered under the names of saints during
Ottoman times, when they were established by imperial edict without a
formal charter.

But it failed to address the sticky issue of restitution, significant
for a number of properties that have been re-sold to a third party
after government expropriation. It also ignored certain properties
such as cemeteries and minority school assets that are not under any
foundation.

The same year with the Turkish peace operation to Cyprus in 1974
which left the island divided into a Turkish Cypriot north and Greek
Cypriot south, Turkey’s Court of Cassation ruled that minority
religious foundations were "foreign" organizations and thus could no
longer buy and sell property. The state then proceeded through
lengthy court proceedings to confiscate dozens of valuable Greek,
Armenian and Jewish properties acquired since 1936, when the state
had required a formal declaration of their immovable assets.