Published on 30 September 2024
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 47318/20
Mehmet Emin NAKÇİ
against Türkiye
lodged on 14 October 2020
communicated on 10 September 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns an alleged breach of the applicant’s right of access to a court stemming from the Constitutional Court’s interpretation of the statutory thirty-day time-limit in declaring his application inadmissible.
On 3 October 2019 the Court of Cassation upheld the applicant’s conviction for being a member of an armed terrorist organisation, namely the YPG (People’s Protection Units, founded in Syria and regarded as a terrorist organisation by Türkiye on account of its links with the PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan, an armed terrorist organisation)).
On 19 October 2019 Law no. 7188 on Amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure and certain other laws entered into force, providing for, inter alia, a possibility to lodge appeals in cassation against final judgments of regional courts of appeal pertaining to a certain limited number of offences.
On 28 October 2019 the applicant sent a letter to the trial court, asking the latter to apply the provisions of the “first judicial reform package” and to apply the provisions favourable to him.
On 20 January 2020 the applicant was notified of the committal order (müddetname) issued by the competent public prosecutor’s office concerning the execution of his sentence.
By a letter dated 7 February 2020 the applicant lodged an individual application with the Constitutional Court.
On 27 April 2020 the Constitutional Court declared the application inadmissible for failure to comply with the statutory thirty-day time-limit. In dismissing the applicant’s objection to its decision, the Constitutional Court held, on 1 June 2020, that he must be taken to have been apprised of the Court of Cassation’s final judgment on 28 October 2019 at the latest, on which date he had asked for the application of provisions favourable to him and a reduction of his sentence (uyarlama yargılaması) if that was rendered possible by the legislative changes. Accordingly, the Constitutional Court found that the thirty-day time-limit started to run on 28 October 2019, whereas the application had been lodged on 7 February 2020, that was after the expiry of the above-mentioned time-limit.
The applicant complains, under Article 1 of the Convention, that his right to respect for human rights was breached due to the fact that his letter dated 28 October 2019 on which the Constitutional Court based itself to declare his application inadmissible as being lodged out of time, did not contain any element that could have enabled the latter to assume that he had become aware of the final judgment.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a breach of the applicant’s right of access to a court within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention on account of the Constitutional Court’s decision to declare his individual application inadmissible for failure to comply with the statutory thirty-day time-limit (see, for general principles, Üçdağ v. Turkey, no. 23314/19, §§ 37-40, 31 August 2021)?