Reyhan v. Turkey (No. 2) (60123/00)

Date	20080923
Article	8
Decision	violation

Violation of Article 8

Reyhan v. Turkey (No. 2) (no. 60123/00)

The applicant, Hasan Hüseyin Reyhan, is a Turkish national who was born in 1953. At the relevant time he was serving a sentence of 12 years and six months in Aydın Prison for membership of an illegal organisation.

The case concerned the interception by the prison authorities of two audio cassettes in the Kurdish language which had been sent to the applicant. When the applicant complained to the Turkish courts that this interception had been illegal they found against him, referring to an instruction in which the Ministry of Justice had banned cassettes in Kurdish from Turkish prisons. He relied in particular on Article 8 (right to respect for correspondence).

Even supposing that the instruction from the Ministry had constituted a basis in law for the purposes of Article 8, the Court considered that it was not accessible to the applicant. Accordingly, as the interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his correspondence had not been in accordance with the law, the Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 8. (The judgment is available only in French.)