Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 100
August-September 2007
Suküt v. Turkey - 59773/00
Decision 11.9.2007 [Section II]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Civil rights and obligations
Soldier’s inability to challenge decision by the military council to discharge him from service on disciplinary grounds: article 6 inapplicable
The applicant, a non-commissioned army officer, received two letters from his superiors informing him that, following surveillance of himself and his family, it had been decided that they did not meet the standards of dress and behaviour expected by the armed forces and that, if the situation did not change, legal proceedings would be brought against them. Following the second letter, the applicant replied that it was an honour for him to serve his country without ties to any particular ideology or political viewpoint. He also stated that his wife’s style of dress had no political connotations and was, in her view, a private matter. Three further warning letters were sent to him, to which he replied in similar fashion. The head of the personnel office studied the applicant’s confidential service record and the office concluded that he held political and ideological views of an illegal, subversive, separatist and fundamentalist nature. A panel made up of nine high-ranking officers took note of this file and set forth in strict confidence the findings previously made by the personnel office. It voted unanimously in favour of the applicant’s early retirement. After the file had been examined by the applicant’s most senior commanding officer and had been forwarded to the head of personnel and referred to the Supreme Military Council, an order was given for the applicant’s early retirement on disciplinary grounds. In accordance with the Constitution, the order was not subject to any judicial scrutiny.
Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1 – In its judgment in the case of Vilho Eskelinen (see Information Note No. 96), the Court ruled that two criteria must be met in order for the respondent State to be able to argue with justification that Article 6 § should not apply to an applicant who was a civil servant. Firstly, national law must have expressly excluded access to a court for the civil servant in question. Secondly, exclusion from the rights guaranteed by Article 6 had to be justified on objective grounds in the State’s interest. In the instant case the applicant had not had a right of access to a court under national law. In addition, the case concerned the applicant’s discharge from the army on disciplinary grounds. The discharge had been ordered following a finding by the military authorities that his profile did not match that required in order to continue serving as an officer in the armed forces, as his conduct and actions were considered to undermine military discipline and the principle of secularism. Hence, there was no doubt that the calling into question of the special bond of trust and loyalty between the applicant and the State, as his employer, was central to the case. Exclusion from the rights guaranteed by Article 6 was therefore justified in the applicant’s case: Article 6 inapplicable.
Inadmissible under Article 8 – The order of the Supreme Military Council finding a breach of military discipline and ordering the applicant’s early retirement had not been based primarily on factors relating to the applicant’s private and family life or his wife’s dress, but on his conduct and actions which had undermined military discipline and the principle of secularism: manifestly ill-founded.
Inadmissible under Article 9 – The complaint was not substantiated as the only factors with a bearing on the manifestation of religion or beliefs concerned not the applicant himself but his wife and the fact that she wore an Islamic headscarf: manifestly ill‑founded.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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