Published on 22 July 2024
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 11219/23
Zana UYĞUR
against Türkiye
lodged on 24 February 2023
communicated on 1 July 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application mainly concerns, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, an alleged breach of the applicant’s right of access to a court due to the Constitutional Court’s interpretation of the statutory thirty-day time-limit for lodging applications when declaring his individual application inadmissible as being lodged out of time.
Under the same provision, the application further pertains to an alleged breach of the applicant’s right to be tried within a reasonable time, given that the proceedings before the domestic courts lasted approximately seven years and seven months before three levels of jurisdiction.
The applicant was indicted with (i) disrupting education and training (Article 112 of the Turkish Criminal Code) and (ii) resisting an order by the security forces for the dispersal of an unlawful demonstration (section 32 of Law no. 2911 on Marches and Demonstrations), but was subsequently acquitted by a first-instance court on 18 September 2020. Upon the public prosecutor’s appeal, the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal examined the case and upheld his acquittal by a decision dated 16 December 2021. This judgment became final on 7 January 2022, no appeal having been lodged against it.
On 25 January 2022 the applicant lodged an application with the Constitutional Court whereby he complained of a breach of his right to a trial within a reasonable time. On 20 October 2022 the Constitutional Court found the application inadmissible on account of the applicant’s failure to comply with the thirty-day time-limit, holding that he should be taken to have been apprised of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal’s decision (dated 16 December 2021) on 20 December 2021, on which date his lawyer had read the appeal court’s judgment on the National Judiciary Informatics System (“UYAP”). According to the applicant’s submissions, he was notified of the Constitutional Court’s decision on 29 October 2022.
The applicant complains, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, that the Constitutional Court’s interpretation of the time-limit for lodging applications entailed a violation of his right of access to a court, because it had been calculated from the date (20 December 2021) he had learnt of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal’s decision, rather than the date it had become final (7 January 2022). In any event, on 20 December 2021 the impugned decision had not been final, because the public prosecutor’s statutory right to lodge an appeal in cassation within fifteen days from the announcement of the decision had not expired on that date. Accordingly, the Constitutional Court’s decision to dismiss the application he had lodged on 25 January 2022 as being lodged out of time had been erroneous, thereby impinging on his right of access to a court.
The applicant further complains of a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention owing to the excessive duration of the proceedings before the domestic courts.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a breach of the applicant’s right of access to a court on account of the Constitutional Court’s decision dated 20 October 2022 whereby his individual application was found inadmissible owing to his alleged non-compliance with the thirty-day time-limit for lodging applications (see, mutatis mutandis, Üçdağ v. Turkey, no. 23314/19, §§ 37‑40, 31 August 2021)?
2. Was the length of the proceedings in the present case in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, among other authorities, Pélissier and Sassi v. France [GC], no. 25444/94, § 67, ECHR 1999-II)?