SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 15651/08
Mustafa OZAN
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 18 September 2012 as a Committee composed of:
Dragoljub Popović, President,
András Sajó,
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque, judges,
and Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 13 February 2008,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Mustafa Ozan, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1978 and is serving a prison sentence in the Erzurum Prison.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 30 October 1998 the applicant was arrested and taken into police custody on suspicion of being involved in Hizbullah, an illegal organisation. On 5 November 1998 he was placed in detention on remand. On 27 November 1998 the public prosecutor filed a bill of indictment with the Diyarbakır State Security Court, charging the applicant and several other co-accused persons with membership of an illegal organisation under Article 146 § 1 of the former Criminal Code.
While the proceedings were pending, Law no. 5190 of 16 June 2004, published in the Official Gazette on 30 June 2004, abolished State Security Courts. The case against the applicant was therefore transferred to the Diyarbakır Assize Court.
On 16 March 2007 the Diyarbakır Assize Court found it established that the applicant and the other co-accused persons had killed S.A. and severely injured two others on behalf of Hizbullah, by beating them with sticks as they had been drinking alcohol. On the basis of witness statements, the autopsy report and the other evidence in the case file, the court convicted the applicant as charged and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In its judgment, the court, noting the absence of signs of ill-treatment in the applicant’s medical reports, decided to take into account his statements made to the police, which were, in its opinion, corroborated by the evidence in the case file.
On 9 October 2007 the Court of Cassation upheld the decision. On 21 November 2007 the decision of the Court of Cassation was deposited with the registry of the first instance court.
COMPLAINTS
In his initial letter submitted to the Court on 13 February 2008, the applicant complained in a general manner that the criminal proceedings against him had been unfair. He did not rely on any article of the Convention.
On 14 January 2009 the applicant sent an application form and maintained that the trial court had erred in its decision. He further alleged that he was denied his right to benefit from Law no. 4959 on the Reintegration of Offenders into Society Act. He also alleged that he had been denied access to a lawyer during the preliminary investigation. Lastly, under Article 14 of the Convention he complained that he had been subjected to discrimination.
In his letter posted on 6 April 2009 the applicant complained that he had been subjected to ill-treatment during his police custody.
Finally, in his letter dated 2 August 2010, the applicant complained under Article 5 of the Convention that the length of his pre-trial detention had been excessive. He further complained under Article 6 of the Convention about the independence and impartiality of the State Security Court.
THE LAW
1. In his initial letter submitted to the Court on 13 February 2008, the applicant complained that he did not have a fair trial, without relying on any Article of the Convention.
The Court notes that the applicant’s complaint essentially concerns the first-instance court’s evaluation of the facts and evidence before it and should therefore be examined from the standpoint of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
The Court recalls that it is not its task to act as a court of appeal or, as is sometimes said, as a court of fourth instance, for the decisions of domestic courts. According to the case-law, the latter are best placed to assess the credibility of witnesses and the relevance of evidence to the issues in the case (see, amongst many authorities, Vidal v. Belgium, 22 April 1992, § 32, Series A no. 235-B, and Edwards v. the United Kingdom, § 34, 16 December 1992, Series A no. 247-B).
In the present case, it is observed that the national courts’ decisions were given on the basis of domestic law and the particular circumstances of the case. The Court finds no element which might lead it to conclude that the domestic courts acted in an arbitrary or unreasonable manner in establishing the facts or interpreting the domestic law.
In the light of the foregoing, the Court finds that this complaint should be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
2. As regards the subsequent complaints of the applicant, the Court reiterates that where an applicant is entitled to be served ex officio with a written copy of the final domestic decision, the object and purpose of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention are best served by counting the six-month period as running from the date of service of the written judgment. Where, as in the present case, the domestic law does not provide for service, the date on which the final domestic decision was deposited with the registry of the first instance court should be taken as the date on which the applicant would definitely be able to find out about the content of the final decision at the latest (see İpek v. Turkey (dec.), no. 39706/98, 7 November 2000, and Yavuz and Others v. Turkey (dec.), no. 48064/99, 1 February 2005). In the instant case, the decision of the Court of Cassation was deposited with the registry of the first-instance court on 21 November 2007. Accordingly the six-month time-limit should be calculated from this date.
The Court further recalls that, pursuant to Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, the Court may only deal with a matter “within a period of six months from the date on which the final decision was taken”. The running of the six months time-limit is, as a general rule, interrupted by the first letter from the applicant indicating an intention to lodge an application and giving some indication of the nature of the complaints made. As regards complaints not included in the initial application, the running of the six months time-limit is not interrupted until the date when the complaint is first submitted to a Convention organ (see Allan v. the UK (dec.), no. 48539/99, 28 August 2001).
In the present case, as stated above, the six months period in respect of the applicant’s complaints started to run on 21 November 2007. The Court notes that the subsequent complaints were lodged on 14 January 2009, 6 April 2009 and 2 August 2010 respectively and were not mentioned in any correspondence prior to 21 May 2008. Accordingly, they were not submitted within the six-month time-limit.
Consequently, the Court concludes that this part of the application should be rejected for being introduced out of time pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Françoise Elens-PassosDragoljub Popović
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy