Kılıçoğlu and Others v. Turkey (50945/99)

Date	20080212
Article	5
Decision	violation

Violation of Article 5 §§ 3 and 4

Kılıçoğlu and Others v. Turkey (no. 50945/99)

The 11 applicants are Turkish nationals.

They were all members of HADEP (the People’s Democracy Party) at the material time. They were arrested and placed in police custody in February 1999 as “suspects” during operations in the Diyarbakır region to prevent potential incidents following the arrest of Workers’ Party of Kurdistan (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan. No proceedings were brought against them. Relying on Article 5 §§ 1 (c), 3 (right to liberty and security) and 4 (right to take proceedings to determine the lawfulness of detention), they complained that their arrest had been illegal. They also complained about the length of time for which they had been held in police custody and the lack of a remedy enabling them to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

The Court considered that the applicants’ detention for nine and ten days respectively before they were brought before the Principal State Prosecutor and released could not be accepted as necessary. It also noted that it had already found that the supervision by the domestic courts of the lawfulness of detention under Law no. 466, on the compensation of persons unlawfully deprived of their liberty, did not meet the requirements of Article 5 § 4. It accordingly found unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 §§ 3 and 4 and held that it was not necessary to examine separately the complaint, under Article 5 § 1, that the arrest had not been lawful. It awarded EUR 3,500 to Mr Kılıçoğlu and EUR 3,000 to the other applicants in respect of non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in French.)