Published on 16 June 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 35902/22
Mehmet SELÇUK
against Türkiye
lodged on 6 July 2022
communicated on 26 May 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the alleged unfairness of the criminal proceedings against the applicant due to the domestic courts’ failure to deliver a sufficiently reasoned judgment in respect of, inter alia, his conviction for fraud to the detriment of public entities.
In convicting the applicant for fraud to the detriment of public entities, the Ankara Twenty-Fifth Assize Court attached weight, in its judgment dated 2 December 2020, to two expert reports. The reports stated that the applicant was among a group of 7,841 persons who had been suspected of having been given the questions for the 2010 Public Official Selection Exam (“KPSS”), prior to the exam, as individuals in this group had correctly answered 90 questions or more (out of 120) and had made mistakes in at least one of the three questions which had allegedly been leaked but the correct answers to which had been changed just before the exam. The expert panel further indicated that it had formed a strong opinion that the situation of these highly successful candidates could not statistically be explained by mere coincidence. The experts left the assessment of the situation to the discretion of the prosecuting authorities, holding that some candidates had only taken one exam which had prevented the panel from carrying out a statistical comparison. The applicant’s conviction was upheld by the Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal on 1 April 2021 and by the Third Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation on 10 November 2021. On 15 March 2022 the Constitutional Court declared his individual application inadmissible.
The applicant complains, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, that the trial court had failed to indicate relevant and sufficient reasons for finding him guilty of fraud, arguing that he had sat the same exam in 2012 and had had a similar success.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charge against him in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to a reasoned judgment regarding his conviction for fraud to the detriment of public entities (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 26, ECHR 1999‑I, and Moreira Ferreira v. Portugal (no. 2) [GC], no. 19867/12, §§ 83 and 84, 11 July 2017)?
The Government are invited to submit copies of all the relevant documents concerning the applicant’s case, including but not limited to the expert reports dated 29 June 2016 and 11 August 2016.