Published on 13 October 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 4057/25
İbrahim GÜNEŞ
against Türkiye
lodged on 16 January 2025
communicated on 25 September 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the alleged failure of the prison administration to enforce a court order and the refusal of the domestic courts to examine the applicant’s claim for compensation in connection with the alleged non‑enforcement.
The applicant, who was a detainee at the time of the events, was initially granted 14 hours per week of computer access by the criminal trial court’s decision of 11 May 2018 with a view to preparing his defence in the context of his criminal trial. When the prison administration reduced this entitlement to 6 hours per week, the applicant filed a complaint, which was granted by the Silivri Enforcement Judge. The prison administration appealed, but on 7 January 2019 the Silivri Assize Court upheld the enforcement judge’s decision in part after being informed by the criminal trial court that the computer access could be limited to 9 hours per week, and instructed the administration to comply with this revised limit.
On 22 January 2019 the criminal trial court convicted the applicant, inter alia, of membership to an armed organisation and forgery of official documents.
On 4 March 2019 the applicant lodged a claim for compensation before the Istanbul Administrative Court for the prison administration’s failure to comply with the original 14-hour entitlement concerning the period between 11 May 2018 and 7 January 2019. In a decision of 28 March 2019 the administrative court rejected the case for lack of jurisdiction. The applicant’s subsequent compensation claim with the Çanakkale Assize Court was rejected on the ground that his claim was not covered by Article 141 of the Criminal Procedure Code as that provision only provided for compensation in strictly limited situations.
Finally, in a decision of 25 September 2024 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s complaint under Article 6 of the Convention about a breach of the right of access to a court owing to the domestic courts’ rejection of his compensation claim inadmissible for non-compliance with the requirement of exhaustion of remedies, noting that the applicant had failed to lodge a compensation claim.
The applicant complains under Article 6 of the Convention about the refusal of the administrative and criminal courts to recognise his right to compensation for non-pecuniary damage as a result of the non-enforcement of the court order of 11 May 2018 by the prison administration.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was Article 6 § 1 of the Convention under its civil limb applicable to the proceedings in the present case (see generally Regner v. the Czech Republic [GC], no. 35289/11, §§ 99-105, 19 September 2017)? In particular, does domestic law provide for a right to compensation when a prison administration does not comply with a court order in this particular context?
2. In connection with the foregoing, did the applicant have access to a court for the purposes of the determination of a civil right to such compensation, within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see generally Zubac v. Croatia [GC], no. 40160/12, §§ 76-79, 5 April 2018)?
The parties are requested to submit any relevant case-law or decisions concerning the right to compensation in identical or similar contexts and specify which courts are competent to examine such claims.