Kilavuz v. Turkey (8327/03)

Date	20081021
Article	2
Decision	violation

CHAMBER JUDGMENT KILAVUZ v. TURKEY

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment1 in the case of Kilavuz v. Turkey (application no. 8327/03).

The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 3,000 euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage, 10,000 EUR in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,150 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)

1. Principal facts

The applicant, Nihal Kılavuz, is a Turkish national who was born in 1948 and lives in Bilecik (Turkey). She is the mother of Baybars Geren, who was born in 1972 and died on 24 November 2001 while in Bilecik Prison.

During his detention pending trial in Pazaryeri, Baybars Geren, who had been charged with resisting police officers during an identity check, was taken to hospital for four days in November 1999, suffering from delirious syndrome, a condition known as “severe paranoid delusion”, and given a course of medical treatment. According to his psychiatrist, it was highly likely that this form of schizophrenia would develop rapidly, but there was no contraindication to imprisonment on condition that he continued the course of treatment, failing which his condition would worsen.

On 13 November 2001 the applicant’s son, who had been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, returned to Pazaryeri Prison. A week later his behaviour again alerted the authorities to his paranoid, anxious and violent tendencies. It was deemed necessary to transfer him to Bilecik Prison, on account “of his psychological problems” and because he was liable to endanger “both his own life and the life of others”; to that end A.G.D., the Pazaryeri prison doctor, drew up a report that was attached to Baybars Geren’s personal file with instructions to the prison reception that he should be kept “under supervision on account of his psychological problems” and re-examined in an appropriate hospital.

During his transfer the applicant’s son continued to talk in a disturbing manner which reflected his recurring fear of being murdered. He was admitted to prison on 23 November 2001 with no prior medical examination.

He was put in an observation cell on his own. He was allowed to keep his belt and given a sheet, in accordance with the prison rules, on the ground that he had not shown any obvious signs of mental illness when he was admitted.

The next morning Baybars Geren’s body was found hanging from the cell bars, with his belt round his neck and his feet touching the ground.

The prison governor did not find any negligent action on the part of his staff. The statutory criminal investigation concluded that the deceased had killed himself by his own devices, without involving anyone else. During the criminal investigation instituted at the request of the Ministry of Justice following a complaint lodged by the applicant, the body was exhumed and a classic autopsy was carried out, the conclusions of which found it established that Baybars Geren had committed suicide by hanging. Those proceedings also ended with a decision not to prosecute.

2. Procedure and composition of the Court

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 10 February 2003.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Françoise Tulkens (Belgian), President,
Antonella Mularoni (San Marinese),
Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italian),
Danutė Jočienė (Lithuanian),
András Sajó (Hungarian),
Nona Tsotsoria (Georgian),
Işıl Karakaş (Turkish), judges,

and also Sally Dollé, Section Registrar.

3. Summary of the judgment2

Complaints

The applicant alleged that her son had been killed by prison warders and that if he had committed suicide it was because the prison authorities had failed in their positive obligation to protect the life of her son against that risk. She alleged a violation of Articles 2 (right to life) and 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment).

Article 2

The Court found that there was insufficient evidence against the Turkish State to support the allegation that the applicant’s son had been murdered. The Court therefore saw no plausible reason to depart from the Turkish authorities’ finding that he had indeed committed suicide.

The Court noted that the prison authorities could not have denied that Baybars Geren had manifested sufficiently severe signs of mental distress to raise fears that he was putting his own life or the life of others at risk. However, no examination was carried out despite the instructions of the doctor A.G.D. and the requirement in the rules that any inmate placed in an observation cell be given a medical examination.

The Court held that it had been incumbent on the national authorities to take the appropriate preventive measures in fulfilment of their positive obligation to protect Baybars Geren’s life from himself.

The Court noted that although Baybars Geren’s mental condition had still been uncertain and no decision had been taken in that regard, he had been admitted to prison and then placed alone in an observation cell and allowed to keep his belt and given a sheet. In the Court’s view, these shortcomings went beyond mere errors of judgment or carelessness and amounted to negligence in providing the minimum safeguards necessary to prison life.

The Court observed that this situation had, moreover, marked the subsequent events leading to Baybars Geren’s death. Given his volatile mental state, he had clearly needed close supervision; there was nothing to show, however, that the prison authorities had given the staff on duty on the day of the incident an instruction of any kind capable of preventing a sudden deterioration in Baybars Geren’s state; ultimately, he had committed suicide unsupervised by anyone.

The Court stressed that the only type of supervision carried out in the cells of the observation block where Baybars Geren had been held consisted of listening from outside a closed gate with a small window through which Baybars Geren’s cell could barely be seen. For want of sufficient numbers of staff, that supervision, which had not even been shown to have been regularly undertaken, had been performed by the prison warders as a secondary duty; in any event, the Court was not persuaded that the warders could have saved Baybars Geren since they had not even had the keys to the gate.

Accordingly, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 2, in relation to the deceased, on account of the failure by the prison authorities to do what could reasonably have been expected of them to prevent the incident. It considered that it was not necessary to examine the remaining complaints.