Published on 3 November 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 3013/23
KESKİN KALEM YAYINCILIK VE TİCARET ANONİM ŞİRKETİ
against Türkiye
lodged on 23 December 2022
communicated on 16 October 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the repeated measures blocking access to the applicant company’s website, Diken (www.diken.com.tr), by decisions of the Magistrates’ Court pursuant to section 9 of Law no. 5651 on regulating Internet publications and combating Internet offences.
The applicant company complains that it has 33 applications pending before the Turkish Constitutional Court, lodged on different dates between 2015 and 2022, all concerning interferences with its ability to impart information about the President of Türkiye and his family.
The applicant company complains that the measures taken by the domestic courts amounted to a breach of its right to freedom to receive and impart information and ideas, guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention. It further complains under Article 6 of the Convention about the lack of reasoning of the national courts’ decisions and the lack of an effective remedy enabling it to have the impugned measures reviewed by the courts.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been an interference with the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression, in particular its right to receive and impart information and ideas, guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention (see Cengiz and Others v. Turkey, nos. 48226/10 and 14027/11, §§ 52, 56-66, ECHR 2015; and Ahmet Yıldırım v. Turkey, no. 3111/10, §§ 46-69, ECHR 2012) on account of the impugned measures blocking access to its website?
Was this interference prescribed by law, did it pursue a legitimate aim, and was it necessary in a democratic society within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention?
In particular, in view of the Turkish Constitutional Court’s annulment of section 9 of Law no. 5651 by a judgment of 11 October 2023 (E.: 2020/76; K.: 2023/172), did this provision and its application meet the Convention requirements of quality of the law at the relevant time prior to its annulment?
2. Did the applicant company have at its disposal, as required by Article 13 of the Convention, an effective domestic remedy through which it could have raised its complaint regarding the restriction of access to its website, in particular in view of the nature of the examination carried out by the Magistrates’ Courts in their decisions and the length of time during which its individual applications have been pending before the Constitutional Court (see Bulgakov v. Russia, no. 20159/15, §§ 46-49, 23 June 2020)?