THIRD SECTION
DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 78170/01
by Ali YILDIRIM
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 7 October 2004 as a Chamber composed of:
MrG. Ress, President,
MrI. Cabral Barreto,
MrR. Türmen,
MrJ. Hedigan,
MrsM. Tsatsa-Nikolovska,
MrsH.S. Greve,
MrK. Traja, judges,
and Mr V. Berger, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 30 April 2001,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Ali Yıldırım, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1962 and lives in Ankara. He was represented before the Court by Mr F. Gümüş, a lawyer practising in Ankara.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 2 April 1992 the applicant, along with some other intellectuals, artists and representatives of non-governmental organisations, totalling 126 persons, gathered together outside the United Nations building in Ankara, where a representative read a declaration entitled “To the United Nations and all other international organisations” and distributed copies of it to members of the press.
On 23 February 1993, the public prosecutor filed a bill of indictment with the Ankara State Security Court against the applicant and 125 other co-defendants, who signed the declaration.
During the criminal proceedings before the State Security Court, the court had obtained some of the defendants' statements before it, for the others it issued rogatory letters addressing the local courts, as the accused persons were living outside the territory of Ankara, in fourteen different cities of the Country, namely, Adana, Antalya, Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Batman, Gaziantep, Malatya, Şanliurfa, Van, Silopi, Şırnak, Diyarbakir and Tunceli.
The court took note of the statements that were sent back at each hearing. It also issued arrest warrants for the defendants that could not be found merely for the purpose of obtaining their statements.
The case file does not disclose any information as to whether the applicant or his lawyer requested from the court that the applicant's case proceed separately from the others.
On 9 April 1999 before delivering its first decision, the court separated the fifteen defendants' cases from the main case as they still could not be found, and sentenced the applicant and some of his co-accused to one year imprisonment each and a fine of 100 million Turkish liras for disseminating propaganda against the territorial integrity of the State and the indivisible unity of the nation pursuant to section 8 (1) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Law no. 3713).
On 5 May 1999 the applicant appealed to the Court of Cassation.
On 8 November 1999 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment on account of the lack of notification papers in the case file, and sent it back to the first instance court.
On 17 February 2000 the State Security Court convicted the applicant of the offence as charged, and suspended the execution of the sentence in accordance with Article 2 of Law no. 4454. The applicant appealed.
On 11 October 2000 the Court of Cassation quashed the Ankara State Security Court's judgment on the grounds that the criminal proceedings against the applicant should be discontinued since the prosecution was time-barred.
On 1 November 2000 the State Security Court adhered to the judgment of the Court of Cassation and decided that the case be struck off from its list.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that his case was not heard by an independent and impartial tribunal and that the criminal proceedings against him were not concluded within a reasonable time.
THE LAW
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that his case was not heard by an independent and impartial tribunal and that the criminal proceedings against him were not concluded within a reasonable time.
a) As to the first complaint, the Court notes that the proceedings against the applicant were discontinued on the grounds of the statute of limitations, he is therefore not a victim within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention.
It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
b) As regards the complaint of the length of the criminal proceedings, the Court notes that the period to be taken into consideration began with the public prosecutor's indictment of 23 February 1993 and finished with the judgment of the Court of Cassation of 11 October 2000. Thus it lasted approximately seven and a half years.
The Court reiterates that the reasonableness of the length of the criminal proceedings is to be assessed in the light of the particular circumstances of the case, in particular the complexity of the case, the applicant's conduct and the conduct of the competent authorities (see, among others, Mitap and Müftüoğlu v. Turkey, judgment of 25 March 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑II, p. 8, § 32).
The Court notes that the applicant has been tried together with another 125 co-accused who were residing in fourteen different cities in different part of the Country. Only twenty of the defendants were residing in Ankara. However, the criminal proceedings were pending in Ankara where the incident had occurred, pursuant to the Code of Criminal Procedure. Those defendants, including the applicant, were heard before the court, for the others the court issued rogatory letters to the local courts where the other defendants were residing in order to obtain their testimonies. The Court notes that it was a complex procedure gathering statements from all the defendants who lived in different parts of the Country.
As for the behaviour of the legal authorities, the Court cannot observe any period of inactivity that could be attributable to the domestic courts during the conduct of the proceedings. Indeed, in the instant case, the length of the proceedings, which consist of a considerable period of the case as a whole, lasted before the state security court for six years, during which time the court was in process of gathering information.
The Court further notes that the applicant was aware that he was being tried with another 125 co-accused and that most of these persons were residing outside the territory of Ankara. In these circumstances he should have assumed that the proceedings would last for a longer period, given the number of the defendants and the complexity of gathering information from them. In connection with this, it should be noted that the applicant had the right to ask the domestic court that his case proceed separately from the others, which would surely have been effective in speeding the proceedings. However, the case file does not disclose any information about the conduct of the applicant or his lawyer as such.
In light of the foregoing, the Court concludes that, in the present case, the length of the criminal proceedings cannot be regarded as exceeding the reasonable time requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
It follows that this part of the application must be rejected as being manifestly ill- founded within the meaning of Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Vincent BergerGeorg Ress
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy