Mehmet Reşit Arslan v. Turkey (31320/02)

Date	20080131
Article	6(1)
Decision	violation

Violation of Article 6 § 1 (length)

Mehmet Reşit Arslan v. Turkey (no. 31320/02)

The applicant, Mehmet Reşit Arslan, is a Turkish national who was born in 1966 and was serving a prison sentence in Diyarbakır Prison at the time of his application to the Court.

The case concerned the applicant’s allegation that he was ill-treated in police custody following his arrest in April 1993 on suspicion of membership of the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party). He relied on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment). He further complained that the length of the criminal proceedings against him were excessive, in breach of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial within a reasonable time).

The Court declared inadmissible the applicant’s complaint under Article 3 as it had not been submitted within the six month time-limit. However, it found that the criminal proceedings against the applicant, which had lasted approximately eight years, did not correspond to the “reasonable time” requirement, and therefore held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1. The applicant did not submit a claim under Article 41 (just satisfaction) and, consequently, the Court considered that there was no call to make any such award. (The judgment is available only in English.)