PARTLY CONCURRING, PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF

        MM. NØRGAARD, JÖRUNDSSON, GÖZÜBÜYÜK, SOYER AND DANELIUS

      In their declaration deposited on 28 January 1987, the Government

of Turkey recognised the right of individual petition under Article 25

of the Convention, subject to certain conditions. One of these

conditions was that the right of petition should extend only to

allegations concerning acts and omissions of public authorities in

Turkey performed within the boundaries of the territory to which the

Constitution of Turkey is applicable. It is clear that this wording was

intended to prevent petitions from being lodged in regard to events

occurring in the northern part of Cyprus.

      The question arises whether this territorial limitation in the

Turkish declaration is legally valid. If it should be considered not

to be valid, the further question arises as to whether this will affect

the validity of the Turkish declaration as a whole.

      We first note that, in accordance with a constant practice, a

Contracting State is free to make a temporal limitation of its

declaration under Article 25 of the Convention, in particular by

excluding its application to acts which occurred before the declaration

was made.

      Moreover, under Article 63 of the Convention, certain territorial

limitations are also expressly provided for. However, Article 63

concerns territories for whose international relations a Contracting

State is responsible, and the northern part of Cyprus cannot be

regarded as such a territory. Nevertheless, Article 63 shows that, when

making a declaration under Article 25, a Contracting State may, in some

circumstances, make a distinction between different territories.

      If a State may exclude the application of Article 25 to a

territory referred to in Article 63, there would seem to be no specific

reason why it should not be allowed to exclude the application of the

right of individual petition to a territory having even looser

constitutional ties with the State's main territory. If this was not

permitted, the result might in some circumstances be that the State

would refrain altogether from recognising the right of individual

petition, which would not serve the cause of human rights.

      We consider that the territorial limitation in the Turkish

declaration, insofar as it excludes the northern part of Cyprus, cannot

be considered incompatible with the object and purpose of the

Convention and that it should therefore be regarded as having legal

effect.

      In these circumstances, it is not necessary to examine what the

legal consequences would have been if the territorial limitation had

been held not to be legally valid.

      It follows that in our view the Commission is not competent to

deal with the applicant's complaints of violations of the Convention

in Cyprus. For these reasons, we have voted against any finding of a

violation of the Convention in the present case.

                                                        (Or. English)