Published on 3 November 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 15839/20
Muammer PEHLİVAN
against Türkiye
lodged on 12 March 2020
communicated on 13 October 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the applicant’s alleged ill-treatment during a search at his home and the discontinuation of a criminal investigation into his allegations pursuant to Article 37 of Legislative Decree no. 668.
On 15 January 2017 the applicant submitted a criminal complaint to the Küçükçekmece Public Prosecutor’s Office, claiming that he had been hit, kicked and insulted by several police officers on 21 July 2016 during a search conducted in his home.
A medical report drawn up following the incident noted that the applicant, who complained of having been assaulted, had a redness measuring 10x20 cm above his left knee and a redness measuring 5x20 cm in two places on his back.
On 14 November 2017 the public prosecutor issued a decision not to prosecute the police officers concerned. He stated that three police officers had conducted a search in the applicant’s house in accordance with a Magistrate’s Court decision in relation to a criminal investigation initiated against him, and that the applicant had been in pre-trial detention on charges of membership of an armed terror organisation since September 2017. The public prosecutor found that the acts of the police officers who had conducted the search in the applicant’s home fell within the scope of Articles 3 and 37 of Legislative Decree no. 668. Therefore, the suspects’ actions had not constituted any crime. An objection lodged by the applicant against that decision was rejected by the Bakırköy Magistrate’s Court.
Article 37 of Legislative Decree no. 668 of 27 July 2016 provides that persons who took and implemented decisions or performed duties within the scope of judicial and administrative measures in relation to the suppression of the attempted military coup and terrorist acts carried out on 15 July 2016 and the subsequent related actions, as well as those who took decisions and fulfilled duties pursuant to the legislative decrees issued during the state of emergency, shall not bear any legal, administrative, financial or criminal liability in respect of such decisions, duties and acts.
On 18 December 2019 the Constitutional Court found the applicant’s individual application, in which he had complained of a violation of the prohibition of ill-treatment, inadmissible for being manifestly ill-founded.
Relying on Article 3 of the Convention, the applicant complains that he was subjected to ill-treatment by police officers. Relying on Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention, he further argues that the public prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute any officers pursuant to Article 37 of Legislative Decree no. 668 rendered the criminal investigation into his allegations ineffective.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 81-90, ECHR 2015)?
2. Having regard to the procedural protection from inhuman or degrading treatment, was the investigation in the present case, which was discontinued with reference to Article 37 of Legislative Decree no. 668, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Mocanu and Others v. Romania [GC], nos. 10865/09 and 2 others, § 326, ECHR 2014; Okkalı v. Turkey, no. 52067/99, § 65, ECHR 2006‑XII; and Abdülsamet Yaman v. Turkey, no. 32446/96, § 55, 2 November 2004)?