A panel on “Anglo-Saxon Legal System and TRNC System” was organized by the Students’ Dean Office of European University of Lefke (EUL) and Sensitive Libra Law Club. Lawyer Cemal Gündüz attended the panel as a speaker at EUL Faculty of Law Conference Hall with the presentation entitled “The Historical Formation of Turkish Cypriot Law and its Impact on Anglo-Saxon Law”.

Gündüz, who gave information about the Anglo-Saxon Law System, said that this system was practiced in many countries; mainly Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, India and the former British colonies. “In the Anglo-Saxon law, judges investigate whether there has been a decision of their own or supreme courts earlier in the case of the preceding case; which describes this as the “common law system”. If such a decision is found, it will be taken as a sample. Accordingly, the judge decides on the new event, “Gündüz said. For this reason The Anglo-Saxon Law is also called the case law and also sample event law, thus allowing this system to be a complicated law system as there are numerous exemplary cases to analyze and indicates that the real creators of the law accordingly to this system are the judges themselves.

Gündüz: Every state that seized the sovereignty of Cyprus imposed its own law to the island

Gündüz stated that the Cypriot Legal system and the Turkish Cypriot legal system, forming part of it, had not been established within a single state order as a whole; due to the changes in the sovereignty that took place on the island and that every state that acquired sovereignty in the island carried its own law thus in the process of formation of Turkish Cypriot law system, it was affected by the legal systems of different states within the process.

For this reason, Gündüz said that the issue should be analyzed within the historical stages of Cyprus and Turkish Cypriots. These periods include the Turkish Cypriot legal system in the Ottoman Empire period, the Turkish Cypriot legal system of the “Early British period” between 1878-1915, the Turkish Cypriot legal system of the “Late British period” between 1914-1960, the Turkish Cypriot legal system in the Cyprus Republic period, The Turkish Cypriot legal system in the period of separation from the governing body of the Republic of Cyprus and until the establishment of the TRNC and the “process of nationalization of the Turkish Cypriots”.

Gündüz, who gave detailed information on the stages, stated that while the Cypriot legal system of the Republican period was evaluated, it should be emphasized that the basic character of the system is based on the Anglo-Saxon law and the nature of the state, and it reflects the characteristics of bi-communal formation.

At the end of the conference, flowers were presented to Gündüz by Ufuk Göncü, the President of the Sensitive Libra Law Club.