The Turkish Cypriot Legal System from a Historical ... - Ankara Barosu

The TuRkish CypRioT legal sysTem fRom a hisToRiCal peRspeCTiVe
community to become the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.”
The Turkish Federative State of Cyprus, which had preserved, with
the Provisionary Article 1 of her Constitution the enforcability of
the codes from the British period, codes enacted by the House of
Representatives of the RoC until December 21, 1963, the Turkish
Community Assembly, Assembly of the Autonomous Turkish Cypriot
Provisionary Administration, and the Legislative Assembly of
the Autonomous Turkish Cypriot Administration, had created a unified
legal system with its codes adopted, amended and abolished by
her Assembly. 85 . This legal system has come to be the core of the
current legal system of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
In this respect, a few examples could be given for laws enacted by
the Assembly of the Federative State and commonly found in the
legal structure of all institutionalized political authorities referred to
as “states”: "Referendum Law", “Political Parties Law”, “Land Registry
and Cadastre Law”, "Motor Vehicles Law”, “Immovable Properties
Law”, “Monetary and Exchange Affairs Law", “Public Servants
Law”, “Military Zones Law”, “Banks Law”, “Social Insurance
Law”, “Law on the Foundation of Security Forces”, “Retirement
Law”, “Reserve Military Officer Law”, “Law on the Collection of
Public Receivables”, "Court of Accounts Law”, and “Rent Law.” 86 A
closer technical inspection of these laws enacted after 1974 makes it
apparent that a majority of them were inspired by the laws of the Republic
of Turkey. Therefore it can be said that during the Federative
State period, the Turkish Cypriot legal system gradually moved farther
away from the Anglo-Saxon legal system and attained a mixed
structure by reapproaching the Turkish legal system.
However it should be underlined that the observation that the Turkish
Cypriot legal system has been shifting towards a mixed structure
composed of Anglo-Saxon and Turkish legal systems, pertains to the
substantive law rather than procedural law. In other words, the shift
from Anglo-Saxon law to Turkish law has been in the field of substantive
law, not the procedural law. On the exact contrary, the Federative
State Assembly continued to remain loyal to the judicial structural
and procedural laws of the RoC period by affirming the validity
of the procedural laws from the British period, and complimenting
them with other laws like the “Law on the High Judiciary Council”,
“Legal Chamber Law”, and “Code of Courts.” We believe that, those
who claim that the modern Turkish Cypriot legal system is based on
the Anglo-Saxon legal system, reach this conclusion by taking into
account the more conspicuous judicial structure and the procedural
law. As the judicial structure formed in the Federative State period
85 Kıbrıs Yasaları, p. 5.
86 For the dates of entry into force of these codes and other codes enacted by the Federative State Assembly see COŞ-
KUN, p. 257 et seq.
111