SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 66569/13
Suzan PASVANOĞLU
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 19 June 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Ledi Bianku, President,
Nebojša Vučinić,
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 26 September 2013,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Ms Suzan Pasvanoğlu, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1964 and lives in İzmit. She was represented before the Court by Mr M. Tucuk, a lawyer practising in Ankara.
The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. A third person, F.G.G., introduced a request before the High Council of Education (“HCE”) for the annulment of the applicant’s doctorate degree arguing that the applicant had used parts of her thesis without giving her credit which constituted plagiarism. On 26 February 2002 the HCE rejected this claim in view of two contradicting expertise reports drawn up by the appointed committees.
4. On 31 December 2003 the Ankara Administrative Court dismissed the case brought by F.G.G. for the annulment of the administration’s decision. The applicant participated in these proceedings as an intervening party.
5. On 27 December 2004, the Supreme Administrative Court quashed the judgment on the ground that a new expertise report should have been prepared.
6. On 1st June 2009, a new committee of experts indicated that the parts of the thesis in question, which were allegedly copied from F.G.G.’s thesis did not reach a level to consider the doctorate in question null. The parties to the case, the HCE, F.G.G. and the applicant presented their observations on this report.
7. On 30 June 2009, the Ankara Administrative Court decided not to follow this report. The court considered that the sole fact that the applicant had plagiarised some material from F.G.G.’s thesis without giving reference was sufficient to annul the HCE’s decision of 26 February 2002.
8. After another episode of quashing, the case was referred to the Joint Chambers of the Supreme Administrative Court, which, by a final decision of 3 October 2012, upheld the judgment annulling the HCE’s decision.
9. Subsequently, the applicant filed an individual application with the Turkish Constitutional Court, alleging an infringement of her right to a fair trial. On 28 June 2013, the Constitutional Court dismissed this application for being manifestly ill-founded as the tribunals had examined the subject matter of the case through an adversarial procedure to which the applicant had had the opportunity to participate effectively, and that the decisions had not revealed any arbitrariness or disregard of the applicable procedural guarantees.
COMPLAINTS
10. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about domestic administrative tribunals’ unfair assessment of evidence, arguing that they had failed to consider properly the expert report prepared in the course of proceedings. Under the same provision, the applicant also complained about the excessive length of the proceedings.
THE LAW
11. The applicant invoked Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and complained of the administrative tribunals’ decisions which had allegedly contradicted the expert reports on the allegation of plagiarism.
12. The Court observes that the case was examined before the HCE and three judicial instances, including the Joint Chambers of the Supreme Administrative Court and several inconclusive expert reports were established. The applicant was able to submit her arguments before courts which offered the guarantees set forth in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and which addressed those arguments in decisions that were duly reasoned and not arbitrary (see in particular paragraph 7 above). As such, the applicant solely challenges the outcome of the proceedings and complains of the national courts’ assessment of the evidence and interpretation of the law.
13. The Court recalls that it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention. Moreover, while Article 6 of the Convention guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down any rules on the admissibility of evidence or the way it should be assessed, which are therefore primarily matters for regulation by national law and the national courts (García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999‑I).
14. Moreover, the case file does not reveal any deficiency in the conduct of the proceedings, and the applicant did not present any argument which requires further examination. This complaint should therefore be declared inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded, in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
15. The applicant also complained about the excessive length of national proceedings. The Court observes that the applicant did not raise this complaint before the Constitutional Court. Accordingly, this complaint must be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention for non‑exhaustion of domestic remedies.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 12 July 2018.
Hasan BakırcıLedi Bianku
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy