260-B), where the Court had found that there had been a continuing interference with the applicant's property rights, was moreover distinguishable on the ground that the Greek Government had not raised any objection ratione temporis in that case.
It followed, in their submission, that the Court was concerned in the present case with an instantaneous act which predated the Government's acceptance of the Court's jurisdiction under Article 46 (art. 46). It was thus incompetent ratione temporis to examine the applicant's complaints.
36. The applicant, whose submissions were endorsed by the Government of Cyprus, maintained that the fact that she had been denied access to her property ever since 1974 and, consequently, had lost all control over it constituted a continuing violation of her rights and that the jurisprudence of the Convention institutions and other international tribunals recognised this concept. She stressed that the rules of international law must be taken into account when interpreting the Convention and contended that the 1985 Constitution of the "TRNC" was - as was recognised by the international community - invalid under international law, because its origin lay in the illegal use of force by Turkey. A second reason was that the policy of the Turkish authorities was based upon racial discrimination in breach of Article 14 of the Convention (art. 14) and of customary international law. Accordingly, no effect should be given to the confiscatory provisions of the 1985 Constitution.
37. In the submission of the Government of Cyprus, the denial of peaceful enjoyment of the possessions of Greek Cypriots in the occupied area has been effected by a systematic and continuing process. They denied, however, that this process had amounted to loss of ownership. Evidence for this contention was provided by the Settlement and Distribution of Land and Property of Equivalent Value Law of 28 August 1995 which, according to the Government, purports to extend what were hitherto limited permits to occupy Greek property and by the fact that Turkey alleged that there had been no confiscation of Greek property in northern Cyprus in a memorial circulated within the Committee of Ministers in 1987.
38. As explained by the Commission's Delegate at the hearing on the preliminary objections, the Commission also considered that the applicant's complaints under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (P1-1) and Article 8 of the Convention (art. 8) concerned violations which were essentially of a continuing nature. In his written observations on the preliminary objections, the Delegate had therefore taken the view that the Court has competence to deal with these complaints as far as they involved the period after 22 January 1990. Moreover, at the hearing on the merits the Delegate, with the endorsement of the applicant, asked the Court to consider whether Turkey should be estopped from introducing new facts relating to the provisions of the 1985 Constitution which had not been referred to during the proceedings before the Commission.
C. The Court's assessment
39. The Court first observes, as regards the estoppel submission, that in principle it is not prevented in its examination of the merits of a complaint from having regard to new facts, supplementing and clarifying those established by the Commission, if it considers them to be of relevance (see the McMichael v. the United Kingdom judgment of 24 February 1995, Series A no. 307-B, p. 51, para. 73, and the Gustafsson v. Sweden judgment of 25 April 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-II, p. 655, para. 51).
40. Although in the present case the objection ratione temporis was raised by the Turkish Government in the proceedings before the Commission, there was no discussion or analysis in its admissibility decision of 4 March 1991 as to whether the matters complained of involved a continuing situation or an in
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