Çağlayan v. Turkey (30461/02)
| Date | 20081021 |
|---|---|
| Article | 3 |
| Decision | violation |
Violation of Article 3 (treatment and investigation)
Çağlayan v. Turkey (no. 30461/02)
The applicant, Erol Çağlayan, is a Turkish national who was born in 1961 and lives in Muğla (Turkey).
On 29 October 1997 Mr Çağlayan was arrested on charges of insulting a police officer. He allegedly resisted arrest. According to the applicant, during his police custody he was beaten, slapped and threatened with death. The same day he was examined by doctors at Muğla Hospital and again on 11 November; both medical reports indicated that he had been injured by a blunt object. Following the applicant’s complaints to the prosecution authorities, an investigation was launched and six police officers had charges brought against them. Ultimately, however, the criminal proceedings against the officers were suspended under Law No. 4616 which allowed for certain criminal cases to be suspended then discontinued if no offence of the same or a more serious kind was committed within a five-year period.
The case concerned the applicant’s complaint that he was ill-treated during his police custody and that the ensuing criminal proceedings against the police officers were not thorough or effective. He relied on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment and lack of effective investigation).
The Court noted that there had been no evidence in the case file to show that the applicant had been injured before his detention. Given the Government’s allegation that the applicant had resisted arrest, it was also regrettable that he not been examined by a doctor following his arrest and indeed that there was no report describing the reasons for or conditions of that arrest. Bearing in mind the Turkish authorities’ obligation to account for injuries caused to persons within their custody, and in the absence of any convincing explanation concerning the injuries noted in the two Muğla Hospital medical reports, the Court considered that the Government had failed to provide a plausible explanation as to how the applicant’s injuries had occurred. It therefore concluded that those injuries had been the result of treatment for which the Turkish Government was responsible, in violation of Article 3.
The Court recalled its previous findings in cases against Turkey where it had found that entrusting an investigation into allegations against the security forces to bodies attached to the Governor’s Office, the executive linked to the very security forces under investigation, had to call into question the independence and impartiality of those bodies. Moreover, due to the application of Law No. 4616, the authorities had failed to pursue the criminal proceedings against the police officers concerned, showing that the Turkish criminal-law system, as applied in the applicant’s case, had proven to be far from rigorous and had had no dissuasive effect. The Court therefore held that there had been a further violation of Article 3 in that the proceedings against the police officers were not thorough or effective.
The Court awarded the applicant EUR 5,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,700 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)