SECOND SECTION

CASE OF KESLER AND OTHERS v. TÜRKİYE

(Applications nos. 18809/18 and 171 others)

JUDGMENT
 

STRASBOURG

3 December 2024

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Kesler and Others v. Türkiye,

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

 Pauliine Koskelo, President,
 Jovan Ilievski,
 Davor Derenčinović, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the applications against the Republic of Türkiye lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by the applicants listed in the appended table (“the applicants”), on the various dates indicated therein;

the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 5 of the Convention concerning the alleged lack of reasonable suspicion regarding the commission of an offence, the alleged lack of relevant and sufficient reasons when ordering and extending the pre-trial detention, the length of pre-trial detention, the ineffectiveness of the judicial review of the lawfulness of detention and the absence of a remedy to obtain compensation to the Turkish Government (“the Government”), represented by their then Agent, Mr Hacı Ali Açıkgül, former Head of the Department of Human Rights of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Türkiye, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the applications;

the parties’ observations;

the decision to reject the Government’s objection to the examination of the applications by a Committee;

Having deliberated in private on 12 November 2024,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1.  The present applications mainly concern the arrest and pre-trial detention of the applicants in the aftermath of the coup attempt of 15 July 2016, on suspicion of their membership of an organisation described by the Turkish authorities as the “Fetullahist Terror Organisation / Parallel State Structure” (Fetullahçı Terör Örgütü / Paralel Devlet Yapılanması, hereinafter referred to as “FETÖ/PDY”), which was considered by the authorities to be behind the coup attempt (for further background information see Akgün v. Turkey, no. 19699/18, §§ 3-9 and §§ 106-07, 20 July 2021).

2.  On various dates, the applicants were arrested and placed in pre-trial detention, mainly on suspicion of membership of the FETÖ/PDY, an offence punishable under Article 314 of the Criminal Code (see Baş v. Turkey, no. 66448/17, § 58, 3 March 2020). The detention orders relied principally on the nature of the alleged offence, the state of the evidence and the potential sentence. It was also noted that investigations into the coup attempt were being conducted across the country, that statements had not yet been taken from all the suspects and that the alleged offence was among the “catalogue” offences listed in Article 100 § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) (for the text of Article 100 of the CCP, as relevant, see Baş, cited above, § 61). It appears from the initial detention orders and the documents available in the case files that the majority of the applicants were identified as users of the ByLock messaging system. Moreover, some of the applicants were suspected of being affiliated with the FETÖ/PDY based on witness statements, or of financing the FETÖ/PDY in view of their use of accounts in Bank Asya – a bank allegedly linked to FETÖ/PDY –, possession of pro-FETÖ/PDY publications and/or United States one-dollar bills with an “F” serial number (denoting the initial of the forename “Fetullah”), and/or their employment by and/or memberships in FETÖ/PDY-affiliated institutions and organisations. The challenges brought by the applicants against their detention, including by reason of the alleged lack of reasonable suspicion of having committed the offence imputed to them, were dismissed, including by the Constitutional Court.

3.  According to the latest information provided by the parties, most of the applicants were convicted of membership of a terrorist organisation by the first instance courts. It appears that, in some of the applications, the criminal proceedings are still pending before appeal courts or the Constitutional Court.

4.  On 1 October 2023 the applicant in application no. 18710/20, Mr Uğur Uzuntaş, died and his spouse, Ms Sümeyra Uzuntaş, indicated that she wished to pursue the application.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

1. JOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS

5.  Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.

2. PRELIMINARY ISsUE: LOCUS STANDI AS REGARDS APPLICATION No. 18710/20

6.  The Court reiterates that in a number of cases in which an applicant has died in the course of the proceedings, it has taken into account statements by the applicant’s heirs or by close family members expressing their wish to pursue the proceedings before the Court (see Tripcovici v. Montenegro, no. 80104/13, § 28, 7 November 2017, with further references).

7.  The Court notes at the outset that unlike the applicants in cases where the applicant died during the domestic proceedings and the application was lodged by his heirs after the victim’s death, the late applicant died during the proceedings before the Court (see Ergezen v. Turkey, no. 73359/10, § 28, 8 April 2014 and the case-law cited therein). In accordance with its case-law and having regard to the subject matter of the present case, it considers that the spouse of applicant in application no. 18710/20 has a legitimate interest in maintaining the application in the name of the deceased and therefore has standing to proceed in the late applicant’s stead (see Ergezen, cited above, § 30 and, mutatis mutandis, Göktaş v. Turkey, no. 66446/01, § 19, 29 November 2007). For reasons of convenience, however, the Court will continue to refer to Mr Uzuntaş as the “applicant” (see, for example, Dalban v. Romania [GC], no. 28114/95, § 1, ECHR 1999-VI).

3. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 5 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION

8.  The applicants complained that there had been no specific evidence giving rise to a reasonable suspicion, within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention, that they had committed a criminal offence necessitating, in particular, their initial pre-trial detention.

9.  The Government urged the Court to declare this complaint inadmissible in respect of the applicants who had not made use of the compensatory remedy under Article 141 of the CCP, or whose compensation claims were still pending. They further asked the Court to declare the applications inadmissible for abuse of the right of application to the extent that the applicants had not informed the Court of the developments in their cases following the lodging of their applications.

10.  The Court notes that similar objections have already been dismissed in other cases against Türkiye (see, for instance, Baş v. Turkey, no. 66448/17, §§ 118-21, 3 March 2020, and Turan and Others v. Turkey, nos. 75805/16 and 426 others, §§ 57-64, 23 November 2021), and sees no reason to depart from those findings in the present case. The Court therefore considers that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.

11.  The Court notes that, when ordering the applicants’ initial pre-trial detention, the magistrate’s courts sought to justify their decisions by making a general reference to Article 100 of the CCP and the potential sentence, as well as to “the evidence in the file”. However, in doing so, they simply cited the wording of the provision in question, without actually specifying what the evidence in question entailed and why it constituted a reasonable suspicion that the applicant had committed the offence in question. The Court refers in this connection to its findings in the judgment of Baş (cited above, §§ 190‑195), according to which the vague and general references to the wording of Article 100 of the CCP and to the evidence in the file cannot be regarded as sufficient to justify the “reasonableness” of the suspicion on which the applicants’ detention was supposed to have been based, in the absence either of a specific assessment of the individual items of evidence in the file, or of any information available in the file at the material time that could have justified the suspicion against the applicants, or of any other kinds of verifiable material or facts.

12.  The Court further notes that the applicants’ initial pre-trial detention orders were mainly based on information indicating their use of the ByLock messaging system, banking activities considered as financing the FETÖ/PDY, subscriptions to certain pro-FETÖ/PDY publications, having in their possessions United States one‑dollar bills with an “F” serial number, and/or their employment by and/or memberships in FETÖ/PDY-affiliated institutions and organisations. To the extent that the detention orders have taken into account the applicants’ alleged use of the ByLock messaging system, the Court notes that it has already found that the use of ByLock alone was not of a nature to constitute “reasonable suspicion” within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (c) in respect of the offence attributed to the applicants (see Akgün v. Turkey, no. 19699/18, §§ 151-85, 20 July 2021, and Taner Kılıç v. Turkey (no. 2), no. 208/18, §§ 102-03 and 106-09, 31 May 2022). The Court also notes that as regards some of the applicants, the Government have referred to the existence of witness statements justifying the measures in question. It observes, however, that there are no statements in the case files referring to concrete and specific facts that may have given rise to a reasonable suspicion against the applicants concerned at the material time. The Court further considers, as relevant, that the other acts imputed to the applicants (see paragraph 2 above) were merely circumstantial elements which, in the absence of any other information capable of justifying the suspicions in question, benefited from the presumption of legality and cannot reasonably be regarded as constituting a body of evidence demonstrating the applicants’ membership of a terrorist organisation (compare Taner Kılıç, cited above, §§ 104-05 and the cases cited therein).

13.  Since the Government have not provided any other indications, “facts” or “information” capable of satisfying it that the applicants were “reasonably suspected”, at the time of their initial detention, of having committed the alleged offence, the Court finds that the requirements of Article 5 § 1 (c) regarding the “reasonableness” of a suspicion justifying detention have not been satisfied (see Baş, cited above, § 195, and Taner Kılıç, cited above, §§ 114-16). At this juncture, it cannot be maintained, as the Government argued in their observations, that the fact that the applicants were not members of the judiciary had any bearing on the conclusion reached. It finally considers that while the applicants were detained a short time after the coup attempt – that is, the event that prompted the declaration of the state of emergency and the notice of derogation by Türkiye –, which is undoubtedly a contextual factor that should be fully taken into account in interpreting and applying Article 5 of the Convention in the present case, the measure at issue cannot be said to have been strictly required by the exigencies of the situation (compare Baş, cited above, §§ 115-16 and §§ 196‑201). It therefore concludes that there has been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention.

4. OTHER COMPLAINTS

14.  As regards any remaining complaints under Article 5 §§ 1, 3, 4 and 5 of the Convention, the Court decides not to examine them, in view of its findings under Article 5 § 1 above and its considerations in the case of Turan and Others (cited above, § 98).

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

15.  The applicants, except for the applicant in application no. 30276/19, requested compensation in varying amounts in respect of non‑pecuniary damage within the time-limit allotted. Most of the applicants in question also claimed pecuniary damage, as well as the legal costs and expenses incurred before the domestic courts and the Court.

16.  The Government contested the applicants’ claims as being unsubstantiated and excessive.

17.  For the reasons put forth in Turan and Others (cited above, §§ 102‑07), the Court rejects any claims for pecuniary damage and awards each of the applicants, save for the applicant in application no. 30276/19, a lump sum of 5,000 euros (EUR), covering non-pecuniary damage and costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable on that amount.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

1. Decides to join the applications;
2. Holds, in respect of application no. 18710/20, that the late applicant’s spouse has standing to continue the proceedings in his stead;
3. Declares the complaint under Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, concerning the alleged lack of reasonable suspicion, at the time of the applicants’ initial pre-trial detention, that they had committed an offence, admissible;
4. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention on account of the lack of reasonable suspicion, at the time of the applicants’ initial pre-trial detention, that they had committed an offence;
5. Holds that there is no need to examine the admissibility and merits of the applicants’ remaining complaints under Article 5 of the Convention;
6. Holds

(a)  that the respondent State is to pay each of the applicants (that is, in application no. 18710/20 the spouse of the applicant), with the exception of the applicant in application no. 30276/19, within three months, EUR 5,000 (five thousand euros) in respect of non‑pecuniary damage and costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable on this amount, which is to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement;

(b)  that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amount at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points;

7. Dismisses the remainder of the applicants’ claims for just satisfaction.

Done in English, and notified in writing on 3 December 2024, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

 Dorothee von Arnim Pauliine Koskelo
 Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

List of cases: