SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 61484/11
Nilgün SOYDAN and Others
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 22 October 2019 as a Committee composed of:
Julia Laffranque, President,
Ivana Jelić,
Arnfinn Bårdsen, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 17 August 2011,
Having regard to the declaration submitted by the respondent Government on 10 July 2019 requesting the Court to strike the application out of the list of cases,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicants, whose details may be found in the appendix, are Turkish nationals. They were represented before the Court by Mr Ergin Cinmen, a lawyer practising in Istanbul.
2. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent.
3. The applicants complained under Article 2 of the Convention about the ineffectiveness of the domestic investigation which concerned the killing of their relative, who was the founder and the first president of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (Türkiye Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu, DİSK), just before the coup d’état of 12 September 1980 by unknown persons.
4. The application had been communicated to the Government.
5. Following the communication of the case, the Court was informed that the second applicant, Mrs Sabahat Türkler, who is the mother of the remaining two applicants, had died on 5 July 2015. Subsequently, the applicants’ lawyer indicated that the remaining applicants wished to maintain the application in her stand as well.
THE LAW
6. After the failure of attempts to reach a friendly settlement, by a letter of 10 July 2019 the Government informed the Court that they proposed to make a unilateral declaration with a view to resolving the issue raised by the application. They further requested the Court to strike out the application in accordance with Article 37 of the Convention.
7. The declaration provided as follows:
“The Government wish to express by way of unilateral declaration that the criminal proceedings conducted after 1996 into the killing of the applicants’ relative did not meet the standards enshrined in Article 2 of the Convention. The Government undertake to adopt all necessary measures to ensure that the obligation to carry out effective investigations is respected in the future.
With a view to securing the final resolution of the above-mentioned case pending before the European Court of Human Rights, the Government of Turkey declare that they offer to pay jointly to the applicants Nilgün Soydan and Yasemin Türkler EUR 18,000 (eighteen thousand euros) to cover any and all non-pecuniary damage, as well as costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable.
This sum will be converted into Turkish liras at the rate applicable on the date of payment, and will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court to strike the case out of its list of cases. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertake to pay simple interest on them, from expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points. The payment will constitute the final resolution of the case.”
8. The Court reiterates that Article 37 of the Convention provides that it may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to one of the conclusions specified, under (a), (b) or (c) of paragraph 1 of that Article. Article 37 § 1 (c) enables the Court in particular to strike a case out of its list if:
“for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application”.
9. It also reiterates that in certain circumstances, it may strike out an application under Article 37 § 1 (c) on the basis of a unilateral declaration by a respondent Government even if the applicant wishes the examination of the case to be continued.
10. To this end, the Court has examined the declaration in the light of the principles emerging from its case-law, in particular the Tahsin Acar judgment (Tahsin Acar v. Turkey (preliminary objections) [GC], no. 26307/95, §§ 75-77, ECHR 2003-VI; WAZA Sp. z o.o. v. Poland (dec.), no. 11602/02, 26 June 2007; and Sulwińska v. Poland (dec.), no. 28953/03, 18 September 2007).
11. The Court has established in a number of cases, including those brought against Turkey, its practice concerning complaints about the obligation under Article 2 of the Convention to carry out effective investigations (see, inter alia, Mustafa Tunç and Fecire Tunç v. Turkey [GC], no. 24014/05, § 169, 14 April 2015).
12. Having regard to the nature of the admissions contained in the Government’s declaration, as well as the amount of compensation proposed – which is consistent with the amounts awarded in similar cases – the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 (c)).
13. In this connection, the Court notes that section 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was amended in July 2018. According to the amendment, applicants in Turkey now have the opportunity to ask the relevant prosecutors to reopen the investigations into the deaths of their relatives not only in cases in which the Court has found a violation of the Convention on account of a failure to carry out an effective investigation, but also if their applications have been struck out by the Court on the basis of friendly settlements or on the basis of unilateral declarations submitted by the Government.
14. Moreover, in light of the above considerations, and in particular given the clear and extensive case-law on the topic, the Court is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto does not require it to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine).
15. Finally, the Court emphasises that, should the Government fail to comply with the terms of their unilateral declaration, the application could be restored to the list in accordance with Article 37 § 2 of the Convention (Josipović v. Serbia (dec.), no. 18369/07, 4 March 2008).
16. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Takes note of the terms of the respondent Government’s declaration under Article 2 of the Convention and of the modalities for ensuring compliance with the undertakings referred to therein;
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention.
Done in English and notified in writing on 21 November 2019.
Hasan BakırcıJulia Laffranque
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Appendix
No.
Applicant’s Name
Birth date
Date of Demise
1
Nilgün SOYDAN
21/10/1961
-/-
2
Hatice Sabahat TÜRKLER
13/07/1938
05/07/2015
3
Yasemin TÜRKLER
14/10/1959
-/-
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