CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 13 mai 2007

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   280 3.5.2007   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT HÜSEYİN YILDIRIM v. TURKEY   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Hüseyin Yıldırım v. Turkey (application no. 2778/02).   The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 10,000 euros (EUR) for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage and EUR 5,000 for costs and expenses.   (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Hüseyin Yıldırım, is a Turkish national who was born in 1960. He was an advertiser in Istanbul.   In May 2001 the applicant was involved in a serious traffic accident, as a result of which he sustained spinal contusion, a parietal fracture on the right side, paresis on the left side and general hyperesthesia.   The applicant was arrested at his home during the night of 5 July 2001 under an arrest warrant dating back several years, issued on account of his presumed involvement in the activities of the TKP ML/TİKKO, a fraction of the extreme left-wing armed organisation TKP-ML (Communist Party of Turkey - Marxist-Leninist), as a result of which he had already been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.   The applicant, who was incapable of moving or looking after his own needs, was placed on a foam mattress and questioned as he lay prone on it. On 7 July 2001 he was placed in pre-trial detention in Bayrampaşa Prison, where he was immediately placed in the hospital unit for a few days before being transferred to Tekirdağ Prison.   On 17 July 2001 the applicant was diagnosed with quadriparesis and atrophy of the hands, and declared medically unfit to remain incarcerated.     Mr Yildirim’s state of health deteriorated during his detention: on 13 November 2001 he was obliged to undergo a bifrontal craniotomy on account of a rupture of the cerebral membrane, which was causing a discharge of cerebral fluid. He subsequently began to suffer from sphincterial problems, requiring him to wear a urethral catheter, and was subject to various more or less serious dermatological, neurological or respiratory illnesses; he also showed signs of chronic depression.   In January 2002 specialist board No. 3 from the Istanbul Institute of Forensic Medicine held that the applicant’s state of health was incompatible with his imprisonment. Furthermore, in November 2002 the board of health at Tekirdağ Public Hospital noted that the applicant was suffering from permanent after-effects; a few months later specialists from the Istanbul Institute of Forensic Medicine found that he was obliged to use a wheelchair and that his illness was incurable.   During his detention the applicant was assisted by the prisoners sharing his cell, who prepared his food and fabricated a commode by making a hole in a plastic stool. However, there were moments when some of them showed reluctance to help him. Thus, during his imprisonment, the applicant was under the care either of his fellow-prisoners or, from October 2002, of his brother and two sisters, who took turns looking after him in the prison wing of Tekirdağ Public Hospital.   In September 2002 Mr Yildirim was transferred in a police van to a hearing at Istanbul State Security Court. At the close of the hearing, the gendarmes who were accompanying him allegedly dropped him; the press published photographs which showed him on the ground attempting to rise.   On 11 December 2002 the applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment; he was released on 25 June 2004 under a presidential pardon.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 22 January 2002.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Nicolas Bratza (British), President , Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Giovanni Bonello (Maltese), Riza Türmen (Turkish), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Lech Garlicki (Polish), Ljiljana Mijović (citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina), judges , and also Fatoş Aracı , Deputy Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   The applicant alleged that the circumstances in which he had been detained and the conditions in which he had been transferred had amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. He relied on Articles 3 and 5.     Decision of the Court   Article 3 The applicant’s conditions of detention The Court pointed out that a prisoner’s health and well-being had to be adequately secured by, among other things, providing him with the requisite medical assistance.   It noted that the applicant was disabled to such an extent that he could not carry out the majority of basic everyday tasks without the assistance of others. The court which placed him in pre-trial detention could not have been unaware of those circumstances and ought to have taken particular care to ensure that the detention conditions corresponded to his disability. This had not been the case.   The Court noted that, throughout his imprisonment, the applicant had been incapable of feeding himself, washing, sitting, moving about, dressing himself or going to the toilet alone. In spite of his disability, Mr Yildirim had been left to the supervision and assistance of his fellow prisoners, who had acted out of a sense of solidarity, and, in the prison wing of Tekirdağ Public Hospital, it had been his brother and two sisters who had taken turns to provide for his needs, regularly remaining with him round the clock. The Court considered that that situation, in which the applicant had been placed for about three years, could not but arouse in him constant feelings of anguish, inferiority and humiliation that were sufficiently strong to amount to “degrading treatment” within the meaning of Article 3.   That was compounded by the applicant’s transfers to the security court. In view of the photographs published in the press following the incident in September 2002 complained of by the applicant, the Court wondered how responsibility for such a disabled prisoner could have been entrusted to gendarmes who were certainly not qualified to foresee the medical risks inherent in the transportation of such an ill person. Consequently, it concluded that the events of that day had also amounted to degrading treatment.   The treatment provided to the applicant As the applicant had consistently refused to comply with the medical prescriptions issued to him, for reasons which were disputed, the Court consider it unnecessary to evaluate the allegations concerning solely the quality of the treatment given.   The applicant’s continued detention The Court noted that Article 399 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allowed for the release of prisoners on health grounds, a provision that supplemented the appeal for a presidential pardon on medical grounds provided for in the Constitution. The Court considered that the reasons put forward by the Turkish courts and Government were not sufficient to justify the applicant’s continued detention until 25 June 2004, in defiance of medical reports which strongly urged his release.   In conclusion, the Court considered that the applicant’s detention, in spite of the protection system offered by Turkish law, had infringed his dignity and had undoubtedly caused him both physical and psychological suffering, beyond that inevitably associated with a prison sentence and medical treatment. Accordingly, it held that there had been a violation of Article   3.   Article 5   The Court considered it unnecessary to re-examine the case under Article 5.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.   [1] Under Article 43 of the Convention, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.