Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 110
July 2008
Çamdereli v. Turkey - 28433/02
Judgment 17.7.2008 [Section II]
Article 34
Victim
Whether applicant who obtained damages in civil courts could claim to be victim of ill-treatment by gendarme against whom criminal proceedings were discontinued: victim status upheld
Facts: In 1999 the applicant was injured following a beating by a gendarme. She was examined by a doctor who reported extensive bruising rendering her unfit for work for ten days. Although criminal proceedings were instituted against the gendarme, in 2001 the criminal court decided to suspend them in accordance with Law no. 4616 (which allowed criminal proceedings to be suspended and subsequently discontinued if no offences of the same kind were committed by the offender within a five-year period), The applicant’s objection against that decision was dismissed and the criminal proceedings against the gendarme were discontinued in 2006. In the interim, the applicant successfully sued the gendarme in the civil courts, where she was awarded the equivalent of approximately EUR 900 in damages.
Law: Article 34 – An applicant was deprived of victim status if the national authorities had acknowledged, and afforded appropriate and sufficient redress for, a breach of the Convention. The civil court’s decision to order the defendant to pay compensation to the applicant for having beaten her amounted to an acknowledgment in substance of a breach. As to the issue of appropriate and sufficient redress, even assuming that the modest award by the domestic court could be deemed sufficient, the focal point of the applicant’s complaints was the inadequacy of the criminal proceedings that had resulted in impunity for the person responsible for her ill-treatment. Breaches of Article 3 could not be remedied exclusively by an award of compensation, as otherwise State agents could abuse the rights of those within their control with virtual impunity and the general legal prohibition of ill-treatment would be ineffective in practice. Accordingly, compensation in such cases was only part of the measures necessary to provide redress and the Court had to ascertain whether the other measures taken by the authorities had afforded the applicant appropriate redress. Although the investigation had been launched promptly and the gendarme had been committed for trial, there was no evidence that he had been suspended from duty while under investigation or during the trial, while the application of Law no. 4616 had allowed the criminal proceedings to be suspended and the charges against him to be dropped. The Court had already found in a number of cases that the Turkish criminal-law system had proved far from rigorous and had no dissuasive effect capable of ensuring the effective prevention of unlawful acts by State agents. In conclusion, the measures taken had failed to provide appropriate redress.
Conclusion: victim status confirmed (unanimously).
Article 3 – violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – EUR 5,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
(See also, for a similar finding in respect of victim status in respect of an Article 2 complaint, Nikolova and Velichkova v. Bulgaria, no. 7888/03, 20 December 2007, Information Note no. 103)
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