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Doc. 9900
12 September 2003
Execution of the European Court’s judgments by Turkey
Written Question No. 428 to the Chair of the Committee of Ministers
Reply from the Chair of the Committee of Ministers
I. Written Question No. 428 by Mr Jurgens (Doc. 9778)
Noting the Committee of Ministers’ reply to Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1576 (2002) concerning the execution of the European Court’s judgments by Turkey,
Welcoming the Committee’s determination to supervise all outstanding issues to ensure that Turkey comply with all the Court’s judgments fully and rapidly,
Mr Jurgens
To ask the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers
What are these outstanding issues and what are the most urgent and important measures which remain to be adopted by Turkey to comply with the more than 400 Court judgments which are before the Committee of Ministers for execution control?
II. Reply by the Chairperson of the Committee of Ministers
In addition to the two specific issues referred to in its reply of 26 March 2003 to Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1576(2002), i.e. the judgments in the Loizidou and Sadak, Zana, Dicle and Dogan cases, the Committee has presently on its agenda 300 judgments and decisions in cases against Turkey.
128 of them will shortly be closed as all measures required for their execution have already been adopted by Turkey. A majority of them concern the problem of excessive delays in paying land expropriation awards.
Among 172 other pending cases, in which the judgments have not yet been fully executed, the following issues are considered to be most important and urgent:
1. Abuses by the Turkish security forces (torture, ill-treatment, homicides, disappearances and destruction of property) and the absence of effective domestic remedies against such abuses. Significant steps have already been taken by Turkey in respect of these problems. The recent reforms have abolished the requirement of prior administrative authorization to engage criminal proceedings against members of the security forces for acts of torture or ill-treatment and accelerated such proceedings. Furthermore, the possibility to convert into fines or to suspend the execution of penalties imposed for such acts has been abolished. Nevertheless, a number of issues still remain, at least partially, unsolved, most notably: the global reform of basic, in-service and
management training of Police and Gendarmerie; the continuation of the reform of the criminal procedure so as to allow effective prosecutions, including the abrogation of the prior administrative authorization in all cases of alleged abuse (homicide, disappearance, destruction of property…); the introduction of effective deterrent minimal sanctions.
2. Violations of Article 10 (right to freedom of expression). Here too, a number of recent legislative reforms go some way to meet the Committee’s expectations and the Committee will continue to monitor how these are implemented in practice. In this context, the Committee has been informed of changes to Articles 159 and 312 of the Criminal Code restricting their field of application and lowering, as far as Article 159 is concerned, the level of sanctions. It was also recently informed of the abrogation of Article 8 of the Anti-Terror law and of amendments to Article 7 thereof. Furthermore, it has received examples of case-law as regards the application of the reforms of the two first mentioned articles of the Penal Code in 2002. The Committee will examine these measures at its next Human Rights meeting in October. Other reforms are, however, expected, notably an amendment of Article 6 of the Anti-Terror law, including the introduction of the “exceptio veritatis” and a more general lowering of the level of sanctions for freedom of expression offences. Furthermore the Committee will monitor the quashing of the impugned criminal convictions and/or erasure of all their consequences for the applicants. This includes a number of cases involving friendly settlements in respect of which Turkey undertook specific commitments.
3. The general measures required to remedy the problems at the basis of violations found by the Court in the case Cyprus v. Turkey (judgment of 10 May 2001), namely the issue of Greek-Cypriot missing persons and their relatives, the living conditions of Greek Cypriots in the north of Cyprus, the rights of Turkish Cypriots living in the north of Cyprus, and the question of home and property of displaced persons. The Committee is examining these matters on the basis, inter alia, of certain information provided by the Turkish authorities.
4. The implementation of the terms of the friendly settlement concluded in the case of Institute of French Priests v. Turkey requiring that the authorities register the right of the aforementioned religious institute to the usufruct of certain real estate in Istanbul. The Committee recently noted that the continued non-execution of this friendly settlement was unprecedented and its Chairman wrote anew on 17 June 2003 to the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs to insist on the implementation of the judgment without delay.
An important related issue concerns the development of the direct effect of the Convention and the European Court’s judgments in Turkish law. In this respect the recent statement of the Minister of Justice calling on all judges and prosecutors to apply directly international Human Rights conventions in their practice is a welcome development as well as his insistence on the importance of implementation of the recent reform packages. The Committee expects to receive soon concrete examples illustrating such direct effect notably by the Turkish courts. In this context, the recently initiated ECHR training programme for judges and prosecutors which was recently initiated in the framework of a Council of Europe/European Commission joint initiative is an encouraging development.
The Committee expects the Turkish authorities to take the necessary steps to resolve the aforementioned outstanding questions in line with their declared determination to execute all judgments of the European Court.