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The constitution put methods in place to protect Turkish Cypriots, due to the restrictions placed in Article 6 of the document. That article ensures the Cypriot government has no right to discriminate against either Turkish or Greek Cypriots. The constitution also ensures, in Article 1, that the Vice-President of the country is a Turk and the President is a Greek. In 1964, however, the Cypriot government became dominated by Greeks. The constitution of the country collapsed, however, in 1963 due to dispute between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The running of the republic by the greek community alone has been legally defined in what is called "Justice of need". Following the turkish invasion of 1974 the state acts as a surrogate for the properties of Turkish Cypriots that moved to the turkish occupied north. Following Cyprus's entry into the EU in 2004 and the Ibrahim Aziz vs. Republic of Cyprus case in the European court of human rights, some individual civil rights of Turkish cypriots residing in the area under the control of the Republic have been restored, thus they can be part of the electoral register and stand in european elections. This however does not restored their communal rights as envisaged in the original constitution, i.e separate electoral register to elect vice president and a fixed number of members of the house of representatives. |
