SECOND SECTION
PARTIAL DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 38927/09
by Evrim AKGÖZ
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 6 July 2010 as a Chamber composed of:
Françoise Tulkens, President,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Dragoljub Popović,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Işıl Karakaş,
Kristina Pardalos,
Guido Raimondi, judges,
and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 11 July 2009,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Ms Evrim Akgöz, is a Turkish national who was born in 1977 and lives in Basel. She is represented before the Court by Mr F.A. Tamer, a lawyer practising in İstanbul.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
Following violent street demonstrations on Labour Day, 1 May 1996, in İstanbul, where incidents including the destruction of cars, shops and throwing explosives took place, the applicant was arrested on 3 May 1996, on suspicion of involvement in the demonstrations and assaulting a police officer.
The applicant maintained that she had been ill-treated in police custody. No medical report was submitted in that respect.
On 14 May 1996 the applicant was placed in pre-trial detention by the investigating judge.
In May 1996 several newspapers published news with regard to the progress in the criminal investigation and the arrest of the applicant and other suspects.
On 31 October 1996 the public prosecutor at the İstanbul State Security Court filed a bill of indictment accusing the applicant of membership of an illegal organisation.
On 17 March 1997 the public prosecutor at the Kadıköy Assize Court filed a bill of indictment charging the applicant and ninety-four other persons with contravening the Meetings and Demonstration Marches Act (Law no. 2911).
On 24 March 1997 the Kadıköy Assize Court issued a decision of lack of jurisdiction and sent the file to the İstanbul State Security.
On 14 July 1997 the applicant was released pending trial.
On 24 April 2001 the 6th Division of the İstanbul State Security decided to join the criminal proceedings with another case before the 3rd Division of the İstanbul State Security (1996/168 E.-2001/130 K.).
Following the abolition of State Security Courts by Law no. 5190, the criminal proceedings against the applicant were resumed by the 14th Division of the İstanbul Assize Court.
In her defence submissions to the trial court, the applicant denied the veracity of her statements to the police and alleged that she had been subjected to ill-treatment while in police custody.
On 26 December 2007 the Istanbul Assize Court terminated the criminal proceedings against the applicant on the grounds that they were time-barred.
According to the information in the case file, the proceedings are currently pending before the Court of Cassation.
COMPLAINTS
Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention the applicant alleged that the criminal proceedings against her had exceeded the “reasonable time” requirement.
The applicant complained under Article 6 §§ 1, 3 (b) and 3(c) of the Convention that she had been denied a fair hearing due to the alleged lack of impartiality of the Istanbul State Security Court and the absence of legal assistance during her detention in police custody. In this connection, she also maintained that the statements, allegedly obtained from her or the other co-accused through ill-treatment while in police custody, had been used as evidence by the trial court. She also contended that she had not been provided with adequate time or facilities to prepare her defence, nor had she been notified of the interlocutory decisions of the first-instance court in the course of the proceedings.
Relying on Article 6 § 2 of the Convention, the applicant argued that her right to be presumed innocent had not been respected as the trial court had been influenced by the newspapers, having already declared her “guilty”.
THE LAW
1. Relying on Articles 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the length of the criminal proceedings against her had been unreasonable.
The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of it to the respondent Government.
2. Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant further complained that the domestic courts had relied on the statements allegedly taken from her and other co-accused under duress while in police custody.
The Court considers that this complaint should be examined from the standpoint of Article 3 of the Convention.
The Court observes in the first place that the applicant did not submit any conclusive or convincing evidence in support of her allegation of ill-treatment. She formulated her complaint in very general terms without providing any details of the alleged treatment contrary to Article 3. She did not produce evidence, in the form of a medical report, demonstrating that she or any of the co-accused had been subjected to physical or psychological pressure during their detention in police custody. Nor did she argue that she had been unable to obtain or had been prevented from obtaining any such evidence. The Court thereby considers that even assuming that the applicant attempted to exhaust domestic remedies by raising her allegation of having been forced to sign confessions in police custody before the trial court, in any case she failed to substantiate her complaint with appropriate evidence and to lay the basis of an arguable claim that she or any of the co-accused had been subjected to ill-treatment in police custody (see Yıldırım v. Turkey (dec.) no.33396/02, 30 August 2007; and Tanrıkolu and Others v. Turkey, no. 45907/99, 20 October 2005).
It follows that this part of the application must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention, for being manifestly ill-founded.
3. The applicant complained under Article 6 §§ 2, 3(b) and 3(c) of the Convention that she had not benefited from legal assistance during her detention in police custody and had not been provided with adequate time and facilities to prepare her defence, in breach of her right to a fair hearing. Moreover, she alleged that her right to be presumed innocent had been disregarded on account of articles published in newspapers about her.
According to the information in the case file, the Court notes that the criminal proceedings against the applicant are currently pending before the Court of Cassation. The applicant's complaints under Article 6 of the Convention are, therefore, premature. Consequently, this part of the application must be rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention (see, for example, Koç v. Turkey (dec.), no. 36686/07, 26 February 2008).
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to adjourn the examination of the complaint concerning the applicant's right to a trial within a reasonable time;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
Stanley NaismithFrançoise Tulkens
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy