Information Note on the Court’s case-law 198
July 2016
Halime Kılıç v. Turkey - 63034/11
Judgment 28.6.2016 [Section II]
Article 2
Positive obligations
Article 2-1
Life
Insufficient consideration given to risk of fatal injuries in context of domestic violence: violation
Article 14
Discrimination
Persistent climate of impunity in matters of domestic violence, mainly to the detriment of women: violation
Facts – Fatma Babatlı (the applicant’s daughter) lodged a criminal complaint alleging domestic violence and seeking protection measures. She had to repeat her request several times because her husband failed to comply with the protection orders and injunctions she had obtained. After he had been found to be in possession of knives, he was briefly placed in police custody and subsequently released. Several months later the applicant’s daughter was killed by her husband, who then committed suicide.
Law
Article 2: The protection orders and injunctions had turned out to be totally ineffective, firstly because of the excessive delays in serving them (19 days for the first order and 8 weeks for the second), and secondly because her husband was never punished for failing to comply with those measures.
Furthermore, despite the fact that her husband had clearly been shown to represent a danger, the criminal court had refused to grant the prosecution’s request to place him in pre-trial detention, without assessing the risks for his wife, including the risk of death or further possible attacks. The climate of impunity thus created had allowed the husband to continue assaulting his wife without fear of prosecution.
Regarding the victim’s alleged ability to seek refuge in a shelter with her seven children, neither the prosecutor nor the police had attempted to direct her to a facility adapted to her needs. The Court found that the national authorities had had a duty to take account of the particularly precarious and vulnerable psychological, physical and material situation in which the wife had found herself and to assess it accordingly, whilst offering her appropriate support.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 14 in conjunction with Article 2: Following the judgment in Opuz v. Turkey – in which the Court had found that domestic violence affected mainly women and that the general and discriminatory judicial passivity in Turkey had created a climate that was conducive to domestic violence – numerous initiatives had been taken in Turkey, such as the enactment of a new law offering greater protection (Law no. 6284) and the ratification of the Istanbul Convention*. However, the facts of the present case had predated those reforms.
Referring to reports by the NGO Human Rights Watch and the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW**), and producing figures recording the numbers of women who had lost their lives as a result of assaults, the applicant had provided prima facie evidence that at the relevant time women had not received effective protection against assault. The Court had itself been able to observe, in the light of those reports and statistics, the extent and persistence of violence against women, particularly domestic assault, in Turkish society; and the fact that the number of women’s shelters, at the relevant time, was considered insufficient.
The above finding of impunity reflected a certain denial on the part of the national authorities, both regarding the seriousness of instances of domestic violence and regarding the particular vulnerability of the victims. In regularly turning a blind eye to the repeated acts of violence and death threats against the applicant’s daughter, the domestic authorities had created a climate that was conducive to domestic violence. It was unacceptable that the victim had been left to face her husband’s violence without resources or protection.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 65,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
(See also Opuz v. Turkey, 33401/02, 9 June 2009, Information Note 120; M.G. v. Turkey, 646/10, 22 March 2016, Information Note 194; and the Factsheet on Domestic violence)
* Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, ratified by Turkey in 2012 and entered into force in 2014.
**Committee set up by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), ratified by Turkey in 1985.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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