SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 75297/11
Bekir ÇADIRCI and Mudet KÖMÜRCÜ
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 26 November 2019 as a Committee composed of:
Julia Laffranque, President,
Ivana Jelić,
Arnfinn Bårdsen, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 8 September 2011,
Having regard to the declaration submitted by the respondent Government on 28 June 2019 requesting the Court to strike the application out of the list of cases and the applicants’ reply to that declaration,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicants, Bekir Çadırcı and Müdet Kömürcü, are Turkish nationals, who were born in 1974 and 1972 and live in Istanbul and Kocaeli respectively. They were represented before the Court by Mr M. Kırdök and Ms M. Kırdök, lawyers practising in Istanbul.
2. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent.
3. The applicants complained under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention that they had not had a fair trial on account of the use by the trial court of the statements taken in breach of Article 3 of the Convention and the systemic restriction imposed on their right to a lawyer during the pre-trial stage, pursuant to Law no. 3842, as well as the use of evidence taken in the absence of a lawyer to convict them. In the same vein, the applicants also complained of the domestic authorities’ failure to inform them of their basic rights prior to the investigative measures and the use of evidence obtained therefrom.
4. The application had been communicated to the Government.
THE LAW
5. After the failure of attempts to reach a friendly settlement, by a letter of 28 June 2019 the Government informed the Court that they proposed to make a unilateral declaration with a view to resolving the issue raised by this part of the application. They further requested the Court to strike the application of its list of cases in accordance with Article 37 of the Convention.
6. The separate declarations the Government submitted in respect of each applicant provided as follows:
“The Government of Turkey acknowledge that in the present case there has been a violation of the applicant’s rights under Articles 6 §§ 1 and 3 of the Convention in the light of the well-established case-law of the Court.
The Government also recalls that Law no. 4928 on 15 July 2003 repealed the provision concerning the systemic restriction on the right of access to a lawyer.
The Government further emphasises that Article 311 § 1 (f) of the Code on Criminal Procedure, as amended by Law no. 7145 of 31 July 2018, now requires reopening of criminal proceedings in cases where the European Court of Human Rights decides to strike an application out of its list of cases following a friendly settlement or a unilateral declaration. The Government considers that the aforementioned remedy is capable of providing redress in respect of the applicant’s complaints under Article 6 of the Convention.
The Government thus offer to pay the applicant EUR 500 (five hundred euros) to cover any pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage as well as costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant with a view to resolving the above-mentioned case pending before the European Court of Human Rights.
This sum will be converted into Turkish liras at the rate applicable on the date of payment, and will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertake to pay simple interest on it, from expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points. The payment will constitute the final resolution of the case.”
7. The applicants were sent the terms of the Government’s unilateral declarations several weeks before the date of this decision. The Court has not received a response either from the applicants or their representatives accepting the terms of the declarations. As the subject matter of the present application concerns criminal proceedings under which the applicants were convicted, the Court cannot treat the applicants’ silence on this matter as a tacit approval of the terms of the declarations. (compare, in respect of civil proceedings, Igranov and Others v. Russia, nos. 42399/13 and 8 others, § 23, 20 March 2018).
8. The Court reiterates that Article 37 of the Convention provides that it may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to one of the conclusions specified, under (a), (b) or (c) of paragraph 1 of that Article. Article 37 § 1 (c) enables the Court in particular to strike a case out of its list if:
“for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application”.
9. The Court also reiterates that in certain circumstances, it may strike out an application under Article 37 § 1 (c) on the basis of a unilateral declaration by a respondent Government even if the applicants wish the examination of the case to be continued.
10. To this end, the Court has examined the declaration in the light of the principles emerging from its case-law, in particular the Tahsin Acar judgment (Tahsin Acar v. Turkey (preliminary objections) [GC], no. 26307/95, §§ 75-77, ECHR 2003-VI; WAZA Sp. z o.o. v. Poland (dec.), no. 11602/02, 26 June 2007; and Sulwińska v. Poland (dec.), no. 28953/03, 18 September 2007).
11. The Court would like to note at the outset that it has already found both a substantive and procedural violation of Article 3 of the Convention in respect of the applicants in Müdet Kömürcü v. Turkey (no. 40160/05, 21 July 2009) and Karagöz and Others v. Turkey (nos. 14352/05 and 2 others, 13 July 2010).
12. In that connection, the Court deems it important to reiterate its well established case-law where it has found in respect of confessions, as such, that the admission of statements obtained as a result of torture (compare Örs and Others v. Turkey, no. 46213/99, § 60, 20 June 2006; Harutyunyan v. Armenia, no. 36549/03, §§ 63, 64 and 66, ECHR 2007‑III, and Levinţa v. Moldova, no. 17332/03, §§ 101 and 104-05, 16 December 2008) or of other ill-treatment in breach of Article 3 (compare Söylemez v. Turkey, no. 46661/99, §§ 107 and 122-24, 21 September 2006, and Göçmen v. Turkey, no. 72000/01, §§ 73-74, 17 October 2006) as evidence to establish the relevant facts in criminal proceedings rendered the proceedings as a whole unfair (see Gäfgen v. Germany [GC], no. 22978/05, § 166, ECHR 2010). This finding applied irrespective of the probative value of the statements and irrespective of whether their use was decisive in securing the defendant’s conviction (see ibid., § 166). As a result, regardless of the probative value of statements obtained under duress and the impact it had on the outcome of the criminal proceedings their use as evidence renders the trial unfair (see Sergey Ivanov v. Russia, no. 14416/06, §§ 90-1, 15 May 2018).
13. Furthermore, the Court has established in a number of cases, including those brought against Turkey, its practice concerning complaints of systemic denial of legal assistance and the use of evidence obtained in the absence of a lawyer to convict applicants (see, in respect of the systemic denial of access to a lawyer and the use of evidence obtained in the absence of a lawyer to convict an applicant, Beuze v. Belgium [GC], no. 71409/10, 9 November 2018; Mehmet Duman v. Turkey, no. 38740/09, 23 October 2018; Ömer Güner v. Turkey, no. 28338/07, 4 September 2018; Girişen v. Turkey, no. 53567/07, 13 March 2018; Canşad and Others v. Turkey, no. 7851/05, 13 March 2018; İzzet Çelik v. Turkey, no. 15185/05, 23 January 2018; and Bayram Koç v. Turkey, no. 38907/09, 5 September 2017).
14. In the above-mentioned cases, the Court, without examining whether the systemic nature of the restriction on the applicant’s right of access to a lawyer was, in itself, sufficient to find a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention, held that the use of the applicant’s statements to the police by the trial court, without examining the question of their admissibility and the Court of Cassation’s subsequent failure to remedy that shortcoming, had constituted a violation of that Article. Moreover, in all of the above cases, the Court considered that the finding of a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention constituted sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants (see, in particular, Golubyatnikov and Zhuchkov v. Russia, nos. 44822/06 and 49869/06, § 122, 9 October 2018; Ushakov and Ushakova v. Ukraine, no. 10705/12, § 112, 18 June 2015, and contrast Shamardakov v. Russia, no. 13810/04, § 181, 30 April 2015).
15. Furthermore, the Court has also established in a number of cases, including those brought against Turkey, its practice concerning complaints about the failure to inform an individual of his rights prior to investigative actions and the use by the trial court of evidence obtained therefrom (see Ibrahim and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 50541/08 and 3 others, 13 September 2016, and Hakan Duman v. Turkey, no. 28439/03, 23 March 2010).
16. The Court further observes that the Government have explicitly acknowledged a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 of the Convention in their unilateral declaration.
17. At this juncture, it is also important to note that the legal provisions from which the issue of systemic restriction on the right to a lawyer stemmed were repealed by Law no. 4928 of 15 July 2003 (see further, Salduz v. Turkey [GC], no. 36391/02, §§ 27-31, ECHR 2008) and that a new Code of Criminal Procedure (Law no. 5271) entered into force on 1 June 2005, in which there is no provision for a systemic restriction on the right of access to a lawyer.
18. The Court further notes that, until 31 July 2018, Article 311 § 1 (f) of Code of Criminal Procedure provided applicants with a remedy entailing the possibility of reopening criminal proceedings solely on the basis of a judgment of the Court finding a violation of the Convention or Protocols thereto. However, following the entry into force of Law no. 7145 on 31 July 2018, applicants are now entitled to lodge an application for the reopening of criminal proceedings following a decision by the Court to strike their case out of its list of cases on the basis of a friendly settlement or a unilateral declaration, as these two situations are now exhaustively listed in Article 311 § 1 (f) of the Code of Criminal Procedure as grounds for reopening of criminal proceedings. Thus, the Court is satisfied that the domestic law provides for a remedy whereby the applicants are able to request the reopening of proceedings following a decision or judgment striking out an application on the basis of a friendly settlement or a unilateral declaration (contrast Igranov and Others v. Russia, nos. 42399/13 and 8 others, § 26, 20 March 2018, with further references, and compare Sroka v. Poland (dec.), no. 42801/07, 6 March 2012).
19. In that connection, it further points out that in accordance with the Court’s case-law and practice, reopening the domestic proceedings is the most appropriate way to provide an effective solution to an alleged breach of Article 6 of the Convention, should the applicants so request. Thus, it considers that the aforementioned remedy is capable of providing redress in respect of the applicants’ complaints under Article 6 of the Convention. Bearing in mind the Court’s subsidiary role in protecting the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention and its Protocols, the Court notes that it falls, in the first place, to the national authorities to redress any violation of the Convention.
20. Having regard to the nature of the admissions contained in the Government’s declaration, as well as the amount of compensation proposed – which is commensurate with the amounts awarded in similar cases – the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 (c)). That decision is without prejudice to the possibility for the applicant to exercise any other available remedies in order to obtain redress (see Jeronovičs v. Latvia [GC], no. 44898/10, §§ 116‑118, 5 July 2016).
21. Moreover, in light of the above considerations, and in particular given the clear and extensive case-law on the topic, the Court is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto does not require it to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine).
22. Finally, the Court emphasises that, should the Government fail to comply with the terms of their unilateral declaration, the application could be restored to the list in accordance with Article 37 § 2 of the Convention (Josipović v. Serbia (dec.), no. 18369/07, 4 March 2008).
23. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Takes note of the terms of the respondent Government’s declaration under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention and of the modalities for ensuring compliance with the undertakings referred to therein;
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention.
Done in English and notified in writing on 19 December 2019.
Hasan BakırcıJulia Laffranque
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy