SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 58267/10
Celal KORONCU
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 30 March 2021 as a Committee composed of:
Aleš Pejchal, President,
Egidijus Kūris,
Carlo Ranzoni, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 16 August 2010,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Celal Koroncu, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1947 and lives in Istanbul.
2. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent.The circumstances of the case
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
4. The applicant’s heiress owned a plot of land in Mudanya, Turkey. On 29 June 1977 that plot of land was registered under the name of a third party during a cadastral survey.
5. On 27 November 2008 the applicant, together with other third persons (hereinafter referred to as “the plaintiffs”), initiated civil proceedings to have the title deed of the third party annulled, relying on an older title deed that had been issued in the name of their heiress. In their submissions, the plaintiffs mainly claimed that the plot of land had been falsely added to the third party’s land in the cadastral survey of 1977. They also requested an interim measure to prevent the sale of the land in question, and the registration of the title deed under their name.
6. On an unspecified date, the Mudanya Civil Court rejected to grant the requested interim measure.
7. On 16 March 2009 the applicant and the other plaintiffs requested the Mudanya Civil Court to dismiss the claim about the expiry of statutory time limit. They argued in this connection that such time limits did not apply to their case as their title deed had never been revised. As part of their submissions, they also shared a list of witnesses, and requested an on-site examination.
8. On 28 April 2009 the Mudanya Civil Court rejected the case, finding that the claims were time-barred. That court stated that the results of the cadastral survey of 1977 could no longer be challenged owing to the lapse of ten years’ statutory time-limit set forth by Section 12 § 3 of Law no. 3402. The court further held that the title deed of the applicant’s heiress had lost its validity as proof of ownership.
9. The plaintiffs appealed. In their appeal petition, they brought new arguments that they had not submitted before the first instance court and maintained that the cadastral survey of 1977 had not been conducted on site, nor had it been properly announced. They alleged in this connection that statutory time limits did not apply where cadastral work had not been locally announced. They also reiterated the arguments that they had submitted before the first instance court, stating that their title deed had never been revised. They contended that the instance court had dismissed their claims in an arbitrary fashion and the conclusion was in contradiction with the case law of the Court of Cassation. In their submissions, the plaintiffs did not refer to any specific case-law of the Court of Cassation.
10. On 3 December 2009 the Court of Cassation rejected the plaintiffs’ appeal. In its decision, the court briefly summarised the dispute noting that the instant court had rejected the case for being time-barred. The court then regarded the plaintiffs’ objections as unfounded, adopting a rather generic reasoning where it referred to the content of the case file, the state of evidence, its fair interpretation and compelling reasons in conformity with the law.
11. On 9 March 2010 the applicant’s rectification request was further rejected by the Court of Cassation.Relevant domestic law and practice
12. The relevant legal provisions concerning the harmonisation of judgments of civil courts may be found in Emel Boyraz judgment (see no. 61960/08, §§ 27-28, 2 December 2014).
13. Moreover, Section 12 of Law on Cadastral Matters (Law no. 3402) states that boundaries, findings and rights recorded in the final cadastal records cannot be contested following the expiration of the ten year time-limit from the date on which the records become final on the basis of rights or claims that had existed prior to the [relevant] cadastral survey.
14. Furthermore, in its decision of 13 October 1999 (no.1999/16-662E, 1999/837K), the Civil Division of the Plenary Court of Cassation indicated an exception for the ten year statutory time–limit to bring claims regarding cadastral surveys that had been final. Accordingly, the ten years’ time-limit would not apply if the cadastral work had not been duly carried out and announced at the place of the plot of land in question.
COMPLAINT
15. The applicant complained that he had been denied a fair hearing in violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention due to the contradictory judgments delivered by the Court of Cassation on allegedly identical cases.
THE LAW
16. The Government submitted that the applicant’s allegations under this head are manifestly ill-founded. They maintained that the applicant had never invoked legal or factual grounds similar to those referred to by the Plenary Court of Cassation in its decision of 13 October 1999.
17. The applicant maintained his allegations and argued that his case had been rejected for being time-barred in contradiction of the existing case law of the Court of Cassation.
18. The Court reiterates at the outset that conflicting decisions in similar cases heard in the same court, which, in addition is the court of last instance in the matter may, in the absence of a mechanism which ensures consistency, breach the principle of fair trial, and thereby undermine the public confidence in judiciary, such confidence being one of the essential components of a State based on the rule of law (see Balazoski v. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 45117/08, § 30, 25 April 2013). The Court identified the particular issues to be assessed in this context in its case law (see Iordan Iordanov and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 23530/02, § 49, 2 July 2009). The Court further recalls that giving two disputes different treatment cannot be considered to give rise to conflicting case-law when this is justified by a difference in the factual situations at issue (see Uçar v. Turkey (dec.), no. 12960/05, 29 September 2009, and Çelebi and Others, no. 582/05, § 52, 09 February 2016 ).
19. In the present case, the Court cannot accept the applicant’s argument that the Court of Cassation had reached to a different conclusion than its settled case-law, by the Plenary Court of Cassation. In the applicant’s case the central factual element consistently raised by the applicant and the other plaintiffs was the non-revision of their heiress’ title deed. Although the plaintiffs pointed to certain procedural issues concerning the cadastral survey, there was nothing in the case file, which supported these allegations. The Court therefore considers that the case-law of the Court of Cassation referred to by the applicant is not applicable to the applicant’s case. In any event, the applicant submitted only one judgment of the Plenary Court of Cassation. Such evidence is not sufficient to establish the existence of a profound and long-standing divergence on the case law of the Court of Cassation (see Emel Boyraz v. Turkey, no. 61960/08, § 73, 2 December 2014).
20. The Court reiterates that, according to its established case-law, judgments of courts and tribunals should adequately state the reasons on which they are based. The extent to which this duty to give reasons applies may vary according to the nature of the decision and must be determined in the light of the circumstances of the case. Although Article 6 § 1 obliges courts to give reasons for their decisions, it cannot be understood as requiring a detailed answer to every argument. Thus, in dismissing an appeal, an appellate court may, in principle, simply endorse the reasons for the lower court’s decision (see Hülya Ebru Demirel v. Turkey, no. 30733/08, § 48, 19 June 2018 and the references therein).
21. In the applicant’s case, the Court of Cassation rejected the applicant’s and other plaintiffs’ appeal with a rather generic reasoning. In its decision, that court recounted the main legal problem, and rejected the appeal by mainly endorsing the Mudanya Civil Court’s assessment. According to the Court, the nature of the decision and the circumstances of the instant case did not place the Court of Cassation under an obligation to provide a more detailed reasoning. As stated above, the applicant’s allegations that his case was similar to the case subject to the 13 October 1999 decision of the Plenary Court of Cassation are unsubstantiated (see paragraph 19 above). Moreover, in his appeal petition the applicant had not specifically referred to the impugned decision of the Plenary Court of Cassation, but contented himself by making a general reference to the case law of the Court of Cassation. In these circumstances it was not reasonable for the applicant to expect the Court of Cassation to give a more detailed reasoning in its decision to reject the appeal. Thus, in the applicant’s case, the Court of Cassation’s decision to adopt the first instance court’s legal and factual assessment does not appear to have upset the fairness of the civil proceedings.
22. This being so and considering that it has only limited power to deal with alleged errors of fact or law committed by the national courts (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999‑I), the Court considers that the decisions given by the national courts do not appear to be unreasonable or manifestly arbitrary.
23. These considerations are sufficient for the Court to conclude that the applicant’s complaint does not disclose an appearance of a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. It follows that the present application is inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 29 April 2021.
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Hasan BakırcıAleš Pejchal
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy