Yalçın v. Turkey (15041/03)

Date	20080219
Article	5, 6(1)
Decision	violation

Violation of Article 5 §§ 3 and 4

Violation of Article 6 § 1 (length)

Yalçın v. Turkey (no. 15041/03)

The applicant, Doğan Yalçın, is a Turkish national who was born in 1976. He is currently in Batman Prison (Turkey).

Suspected of belonging to the illegal organisation PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan), Mr Yalçın was arrested and remanded in police custody in September 1996. He was placed in pre-trial detention in October 1996, before finally being sentenced in December 2003 to the death penalty commuted to life imprisonment. Relying on Article 5 §§ 3 (right to liberty and security) and 4 (right to have the lawfulness of detention decided speedily by a court), Mr Yalçın complained of the length of his pre-trial detention and of the lack of a remedy to challenge his detention and obtain his release. He also complained of the excessive length of the criminal proceedings against him and relied on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial within a reasonable time).

The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 3, noting in particular that the applicant had spent approximately six years and six months in pre-trial detention. It also observed that the applicant had applied for conditional release on a number of occasions during the 41 hearings before the National Security Court which tried him, and had had all his applications dismissed. The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 4. It noted, further, that the proceedings in question had lasted approximately seven years and seven months and held that this was an excessive length of time. It thus concluded unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 and awarded Mr Yalçın EUR 5,100 for non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in French.)