CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 14 janvier 2003

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s94935B0F { width:389.85pt; display:inline-block } .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 } .sA933DC52 { width:32.1pt; display:inline-block } .sE66C3C18 { width:110.13pt; display:inline-block } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sA8792699 { width:43.46pt; display:inline-block } .s9793A85B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt } .s76CF415B { page-break-before:always; clear:both } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .s3964C3A3 { width:1.36pt; display:inline-block } .s901C2590 { width:56.7pt; display:inline-block } .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 } .s3133A7C8 { font-family:Arial; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS     011   14.1.2003   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENTS CONCERNING Romania, Sweden and Turkey   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following three Chamber judgments, of which only the friendly-settlement judgment is final: [1]   Section 2   (1)     H.K. and others v. Turkey (application no. 29864/96)   Friendly settlement The applicants are three Turkish nationals, born in 1973, 1966 and 1941, and living in the village of Güleç, Mazgirt.   They allege that their father, A.K., was interrogated by the security forces on 3 October 1994 while he was out grazing his cattle. They accused him of providing help and support to members of the PKK and took him to the gendarmerie. His relatives went to the Ataçınar gendarmerie the next day, where they were given A.K.’s personal belongings and informed that he had been transferred to the Tunceli gendarmerie. It turned out, however, that he was not at those premises. A.K. was found on 7 October 1994 unconscious and in a coma at Tunceli State Hospital, where police officers had apparently left him.   He died on 10 October 1994 at Elazığ Hospital, to which he had been transferred. The doctors did not carry out an autopsy, but diagnosed a cerebral infection and found bruises and abrasions on his body and an injury behind his left ear. The applicants lodged a criminal complaint with the Tunceli public prosecutor’s office in December 1994, and learnt subsequently that in January 1995 the public prosecutor had ruled that he had no jurisdiction and had forwarded the file to the administrative council of Tunceli province.   According to the Turkish Government, the medical reports drawn up in the present case established that A.K. had died of meningitis. The administrative council to which the file had been forwarded carried out an inquiry which showed that between 1 and 10 October 1994 A.K. had not been detained in the Ataçınar gendarmerie, and that the Tunceli State Hospital had not treated anyone of that name. The administrative council closed the case file on 27 March 1996, considering that the applicants’ allegations had not been established.   Relying on Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment) and 5 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants alleged that their father had died as a result of being tortured by the security forces while he was in their custody.   The case has been struck out following a friendly settlement under which the applicants are to receive 60,000 euros (EUR) for damage and for costs and expenses.   The Turkish Government have also made the following declaration: “The Government regret the occurrence of individual cases of death resulting from the failure to protect the lives of detainees and the failure of the authorities to carry out effective investigations into the circumstances surrounding the death of detainees, as in the case of the applicants’ relative, [Mr H.K., Mr A.D.K. and Mrs K.K.], notwithstanding existing Turkish legislation and the resolve of the Government to remedy such failures. It is accepted that such acts and failures constitute a violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. The Government undertake to issue appropriate instructions and adopt all necessary measures to ensure that the right to life and the prohibition of ill-treatment – including the obligation to carry out effective investigations as also required by Articles 2 and 13 – are respected in the future. It is noted in this connection that new legal and administrative measures have been adopted which have resulted in a reduction in the occurrence of deaths and ill-treatment of detainees in circumstances similar to those of the instant application and in more effective investigations being carried out. The Government further undertake to re-open the investigation carried out in the instant case.     The Government consider that the supervision by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe of the execution of Court judgments concerning Turkey in this and similar cases is an appropriate mechanism for ensuring that improvements will continue to be made in this context. To this end, necessary co-operation in this process will continue to take place.”   (The judgment is available only in French.)   (2)     Oprescu v. Romania (no. 36039/97)   Violation Article 6 § 1 Violation Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 Article 2 of Protocol No. 4: inadmissible Ion Oprescu is a Swiss national, born in 1930 and living in Sion, Switzerland.   In 1994 the applicant brought an action in the Bucharest Court of First Instance to establish title with a view to recovering property in Bucharest which the State had confiscated in 1979 after he had emigrated to Switzerland. The court held that Decree no. 224/1974, by which the property had been nationalised, was contrary to the Constitution of 1965 and found for the applicant. An appeal lodged by the Bucharest City Council was dismissed by a judgment that became final and irreversible when no appeal was lodged.   On appeal by the Procurator-General of Romania, the Supreme Court of Justice quashed that judgment on 31 October 1996 on the ground that the courts did not have jurisdiction to review the application of the decree on nationalisation. The applicant lodged an application for restitution of the property, which was granted by the Court of First Instance in March 1997. However, as the State had sold the property in the meantime, it was not returned to the applicant. The applicant then lodged further proceedings to establish title to the property, which ended on 21 May 2002 with the Bucharest Court of Appeal ordering the property to be returned to him.   Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial), the applicant complained of the Supreme Court of Justice’s refusal to recognise the courts’ jurisdiction to determine an action to establish title to property. He also complained that, in justifying the confiscation of his property on the ground of his emigration to Switzerland, the Supreme Court of Justice had infringed Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement). He relied, further, on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) in support of his allegation that the judgment of 31 October 1996 had infringed his right to peaceful enjoyment of his possessions.   The Court noted that the confiscation had been ordered before Romania had ratified the Convention and that, furthermore, the Supreme Court of Justice had neither dealt with the merits of the case nor given a ruling on the confiscation of the applicant’s property. It accordingly held that the complaint alleging a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 was manifestly ill-founded.   The Court reiterated that the quashing of a final judgment was contrary to the principle of legal certainty. In quashing a court judgment which had become final, the Supreme Court of Justice had infringed the right to a fair trial, in breach of Article 6 § 1. Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s refusal to recognise that the courts had jurisdiction to deal with the applicant’s action to establish title to the property was in itself contrary to the right of access to a tribunal. Accordingly, the Court held that there had also been a violation of Article 6 § 1 in that respect.   The Court noted that the applicant’s right of property had been established by a final judgment and had therefore been irrevocable. The judgment of the Supreme Court had had the effect of depriving him of his property. Consequently, the Court considered that the fair balance that had to be struck between the demands of the general interest and the requirements of the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights had been upset and that the applicant had borne and continued to bear an individual and excessive burden. The Court accordingly held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and awarded the applicant EUR 2,000 for pecuniary damage and EUR 1,000 for non-pecuniary damage.   (The judgment is available only in French.)   Section 4   (3)     Lagerblom v. Sweden (no. 26891/95)   No violation Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 Antero Lagerblom, a Finnish national, was born in 1942 and settled in Sweden in the second half of the 1980s. His mother tongue is Finnish.   Between December 1991 and February 1993 he was charged with a number of offences, including aggravated drunken driving, causing a traffic accident and attempted aggravated assault. H. was appointed as Mr Lagerblom’s public defence counsel, who assisted him during the main hearing before Gothenburg District Court on 10 May 1994. Prior to the hearing the applicant had requested that H. be replaced by S., a lawyer who knew Finnish. During the hearing the applicant defended himself in Finnish via a court interpreter and submitted certain pleadings in Finnish, which were translated into Swedish.   On 24 May 1994 the applicant was convicted and sentenced to one year and two month’s imprisonment and ordered to pay 450 Swedish kronor (SEK) towards costs, including H.’s fees of SEK   10,395. The remainder of the costs was borne by the State. Mr Lagerblom appealed and again asked to be represented by S. His request was refused and appeal unsuccessful.   He alleged, in particular, that his rights under Article 6 (right to a fair trial) had been violated in criminal proceedings against him, as his public defence counsel was not Finnish-speaking.   The European Court of Human Rights noted that when the applicant first requested a replacement lawyer, H. had been his counsel for about two-and-a-half years. The amount of work undertaken had increased when his request to the Court of Appeal was made in August 1994. Observing that, on both occasions, it was clear that the proceedings had reached a stage where the requested replacement would have caused certain inconvenience and entailed additional costs, the Court did not find it unreasonable, in view of the general desirability of limiting the total costs of legal aid, for national authorities to take a restrictive approach to requests to replace public defence counsel once they had been assigned to a case and had undertaken certain activities.   Moreover, there was no evidence in the case that the applicant, before the Swedish courts, claimed that H., for any reason, was unable to provide him with effective legal assistance or that he lacked confidence in H., nor was there any indication of a manifest failure on the part of H. which should have led the courts to intervene.   The Court accepted that the applicant’s knowledge of Swedish might have been somewhat limited, despite his lengthy stay in Sweden. However, noting that the applicant described his proficiency as “street Swedish” and that he thus had a certain command of the language, the Court could not find that he was so handicapped that he could not at all communicate with H. or understand him. It further observed that interpretation between Finnish and Swedish was arranged at both hearings and that the applicant made oral submissions in Finnish. Furthermore, in accordance with the Nordic Language Convention, he was allowed to make written submissions in Finnish to both courts which were translated and entered into the case-file. In those circumstances, the Court considered that the interpretation assistance provided for the applicant was adequate.   Considering that the applicant was able to participate effectively in his trial and that, consequently, the criminal proceedings, taken as a whole, could not be regarded as unfair, the Court held, unanimously, that there had been no violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3.   (The judgment is available only in English.)   ***   These summaries by the Registry do not bind the Court. The full texts of the Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. On 1 November 1998 a full-time Court was established, replacing the original two-tier system of a part-time Commission and Court. [1] .     Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, 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.