Kahraman Yılmaz and Others v. Turkey (51423/99)

Date	20080424
Article	6(1)
Decision	violation

Two violations of Article 6 § 1 (length)

No violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

Kahraman Yılmaz and Others v. Turkey (no. 51423/99)

The applicants, Kahraman Yılmaz, Bilal Arıkan, Birol Ayten, Ali Dilli and Ahmet Cihan, are Turkish nationals who were born respectively in 1955, 1956, 1959, 1956 and 1954 and live in Istanbul.

They were arrested and remanded in custody in the early 1980s on suspicion of being members of the TKP/ML-TIKKO (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist, Turkish Workers and Peasants’ Liberation Army). After being acquitted in 1999, the applicants separately filed compensation claims in respect of their detention and obtained awards on that basis. Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial within a reasonable time), they complained about the excessive length of the criminal proceedings against them. The applicant Ahmet Cihan also complained, under Article 6 § 1 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), about the excessive length of the compensation proceedings and the delay in the payment of the compensation.

The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the excessive length of the criminal proceedings against the applicants. It further found that there had also been a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the length of the compensation proceedings brought by Mr Cihan, but that there had been no violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 as the applicant had not incurred any actual loss because of the time taken by the authorities to pay the sum awarded. The Court awarded the applicants the total sum of EUR 44,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,500 jointly to the applicants for costs and expenses (The judgment is available only in French.)