Communicated on 9 October 2017
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 80749/13
Mehmet ÇERİKAN
against Turkey
lodged on 6 December 2013
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant is a judge who was denied a promotion in 2002, which deprived him of an increase in salary and pension benefits. The application concerns several proceedings initiated by the applicant to find out and challenge the reasons behind that decision. In 2004, following a change in legislation, the applicant asked the Ministry of Justice (“the Ministry”) to give a copy of his personal file, including the appraisal report for the year 2001 and other relevant documents, which formed the basis of the decision to deny him a promotion. The Ministry rejected the applicant’s request to access his file, but informed him that his appraisal note was average. The applicant then successfully brought an action against the Ministry and received a copy of the appraisal report and other relevant documents in 2007. Subsequently, the applicant filed an administrative action against the Ministry to have the appraisal report annulled. The first-instance court ruled for the applicant, but the Supreme Administrative Court rejected his lawsuit on appeal by the Ministry as being out of time. The court held that the applicant should have brought the case in 2004 when he had been informed about his appraisal note. On 27 May 2013 the Constitutional Court rejected the applicant’s individual application as being manifestly ill-founded.
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that he did not have a fair hearing. He claims that the national courts had wrongly calculated the starting date of the time-limit as 2004 because he had not had access to the appraisal report until 2007 and, as such, he could not have been expected to bring a successful court case in the absence of that document.
QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES
1. Was Article 6 § 1 of the Convention under its civil head applicable to the administrative action brought by the applicant (see, mutatis mutandis, Dzhidzheva-Trendafilova v. Bulgaria (dec.), no. 12628/09, 9 October 2012)?
2. If so, has there been a breach of the applicant’s right of access to court within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 on account of the dismissal of the administrative action as being out of time? In particular, could the applicant be reasonably expected to bring proceedings against the decision to deny him a promotion, without having access to the contents of the appraisal report and the rest of the documents in his personal file?
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy