THIRD SECTION
PARTIAL DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 15614/02
by Mehmet TAMAR
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 13 May 2004 as a Chamber composed of:
MrG. Ress, President,
MrI. Cabral Barreto,
MrR. Türmen,
MrJ. Hedigan,
MrsH.S. Greve,
MrK. Traja,
MrsA. Gyulumyan, judges,
and Mr V. Berger, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 2 April 2002,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Mehmet Tamar, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1944 and lives in Istanbul. He is represented before the Court by Mr Y. Baysal, a lawyer practising in Istanbul.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant and his brother are the only successors of their mother, who died in 1983. The applicant’s mother was the co-owner of certain plots of land in Istanbul. Following her decease, the applicant had conflicts with his brother regarding the distribution of her estate.
On 19 December 1994 the applicant initiated civil proceedings against his brother before the Üsküdar Civil Court of General Jurisdiction and claimed pecuniary damage resulting from the unjust distribution of his mother’s estate.
The civil proceeding before the Üsküdar Civil Court of General Jurisdiction is currently pending.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the length of the civil proceedings exceeded the reasonable time requirement.
The applicant maintains that there exists no effective remedy under Turkish law whereby he could challenge the excessive length of the proceedings in dispute. In this context, he invokes Article 13 of the Convention in conjunction with Article 6 of the Convention.
The applicant further complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that due to the excessive length of the civil proceedings his right to peaceful enjoyment of his possessions has been breached.
THE LAW
1. The applicant invokes Article 6 § 1 of the Convention together with Article 13 of the Convention. The applicant alleges that the length of the civil proceedings exceeded the reasonable time requirement in breach of Article 6.
The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.
2. Invoking Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 the applicant further complains that due to the excessive length of the civil proceedings his right to peaceful enjoyment of his possessions has been breached.
The Rapporteur recalls that Article 1 of Protocol No.1 does no more than enshrine the right of everyone to the peaceful enjoyment of "his" possessions, that consequently it applies only to a person’s existing
possessions and that it does not guarantee the right to acquire possessions whether on intestacy or through voluntary dispositions (see Marckx v. Belgium, judgment of 13 June 1979, no. 31, p. 23, § 50).
It follows that this complaint is incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicant’s complaints concerning the length of the civil proceedings and the lack of an effective remedy for the unreasonable length of the civil proceedings;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
Vincent BergerGeorg Ress
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy