Published on 4 August 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 51108/18
Ertuğrul ŞAHİN
against Türkiye
lodged on 25 October 2018
communicated on 15 July 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns an alleged violation of the right of access to a court, arising from the Constitutional Court’s refusal to grant the applicant legal aid in three sets of individual application proceedings in which he challenged various investigative measures against him.
In the context of criminal investigations against him, the applicant’s house was searched, and certain belongings were seized. Subsequently, the Ankara Magistrates’ Court ordered his pre-trial detention on charges of membership of an armed terrorist organisation.
The applicant lodged, inter alia, three individual applications with the Constitutional Court challenging, respectively, the constitutionality of the search of his house and the length and lawfulness of his detention. He requested exemption from the individual application fees, arguing that he was in detention, that all of his movable and immovable assets had been placed under a preventive seizure order, and that he lacked the financial means to cover the fees.
The Constitutional Court rejected the applicant’s request for exemption on the grounds that he had begun receiving his pension, and accordingly granted him fifteen days to pay the application fees. The applicant objected to that decision, arguing that the bank automatically withdrew from his monthly pension his mortgage payments for his two immovable assets which were already seized within the scope of the criminal investigations, and in any event the remaining amount was barely enough to cover his expenses in prison and his family who depended on him.
On various dates, the Constitutional Court rejected the applicant’s requests for exemption from the individual application fees with final effect, on the grounds that he was receiving a pension and possessed adequate assets, and declined to examine his applications.
Relying on Article 6 of the Convention, the applicant alleges that his right of access to a court was violated due to the Constitutional Court’s above-mentioned decisions dismissing both his requests for exemption from the individual application fees and his individual applications.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the applicant’s right of access to a court violated in the present case? In particular, was the refusal of the applicant’s request for exemption from the individual application fees in the above-mentioned individual application proceedings, including, in particular, those concerning the house search and the seizures, in line with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see Zubac v. Croatia, [GC], no. 40160/12, §§ 76‑78, 5 April 2018, and Staroszczyk v. Poland, no. 59519/00, §§ 127‑29, 22 March 2007)?
2. Having regard to the fact that in two of his individual applications the applicant challenged the lawfulness and length of his pre-trial detention, did the applicant have at his disposal a remedy by which he could challenge the lawfulness of his deprivation of liberty, as required by Article 5 § 4 of the Convention? In particular, was he unable to effectively challenge his detention because of the Constitutional Court’s decision to reject his requests for exemption from the individual application fees (see Öcalan v. Turkey [GC], no. 46221/99, § 66, ECHR 2005-IV, and Mihailovs v. Latvia, no. 35939/10, §§ 154-155, 22 January 2013)?