Published on 24 March 2025

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 11924/20
Naif BAL
against Türkiye
lodged on 21 February 2020
communicated on 5 March 2025

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application mainly concerns an alleged violation of the applicant’s right of access to a court under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, arising from a disagreement with the Constitutional Court over the date of submission of his application to the latter. The applicant claims that while the Constitutional Court deemed his application late, he had actually submitted it within the required time frame. He further raises complaints under various Articles of the Convention, relating to disciplinary sanctions imposed on him during his time in prison.

At the time of lodging his application, the applicant was serving a prison sentence in Bolu F-type Prison, having previously been held in Kocaeli no. 2 F-type Prison. Between 2005 and 2009, he was subjected to 23 disciplinary sanctions for breaching prison regulations through his statements and actions. These sanctions included solitary confinement, restrictions on visits and communication, and limitations on access to certain prison activities. The applicant’s actions primarily involved chanting slogans in support of the PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan) and its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, submitting petitions, and launching hunger strikes in protest of Öcalan’s detention conditions.

Following the Court’s decision declaring his earlier application (no. 9984/12) inadmissible due to non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, the applicant filed a claim with the Compensation Commission in 2016. The Compensation Commission acknowledged that the disciplinary sanctions imposed by the Kocaeli no. 2 F-type Prison had violated the applicant’s right to respect for his private and family life, particularly noting his prolonged isolation, and awarded him TRY 4,500 (EUR 1,160 at the time). However, it found the sanctions imposed by the Bolu F-type Prison to be proportionate and rejected claims of any violations in that context.

Dissatisfied with the compensation amount, the applicant appealed to the Ankara Regional Administrative Court, arguing that it was insufficient and inconsistent with the Court’s case law. He also sought a review of the Bolu F-type Prison sanctions, contending that they were unlawful. However, the court upheld the Compensation Commission’s decision. The court’s decision was communicated to the applicant on 18 October 2017.

The applicant subsequently lodged an individual application with the Constitutional Court. However, the Constitutional Court rejected it as being lodged out of the thirty-day time-limit, having determined that the application was submitted on 20 November 2017. The applicant, however, contends that he handed over the application to the prison authorities on 17 November 2017. In support of this, he provided a letter from the Bolu Assize Court, which states that although the application was dated 17 November 2017, it was only forwarded to the assize court by the prison authorities on 20 November 2017 for transmission to the Constitutional Court.

In this regard, the applicant alleges, under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention, that the Constitutional Court’s dismissal of his application as being out of time was erroneous and violated his right to a fair trial.

The applicant further complains, under various Articles of the Convention, that the disciplinary sanctions imposed on him constituted a breach of his right to respect for his private and family life.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1.  Has the applicant’s right of access to a court been breached by the Constitutional Court’s decision to declare his individual application inadmissible on the grounds of alleged non-compliance with the thirty-day time-limit for lodging applications (see, mutatis mutandis, Üçdağ v. Turkey, no. 23314/19, §§ 37‑40, 31 August 2021)? If so, would the finding of a violation by the Court in that regard allow the applicant to seek the reopening of the proceedings before the Constitutional Court?

2.  Can the acknowledgment by the Compensation Commission of a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, together with the non-pecuniary compensation awarded, be regarded as sufficient to deprive the applicant of his “victim status” under Article 34 of the Convention in relation to the 20 disciplinary sanctions imposed in the Kocaeli No. 2 F-type Prison (see Gäfgen v. Germany [GC], no. 22978/05, § 116, ECHR 2010, and Bivolaru v. Romania (no. 2), no. 66580/12, § 170, 2 October 2018)? If not, has there been a breach of Article 8 of the Convention in respect of those sanctions (see Gülmez v. Turkey, no. 16330/02, §§ 46-55, 20 May 2008)?

3.  Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for private and family life within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention in respect of the disciplinary sanctions imposed in the Bolu F-type Prison (see, mutatis mutandis Khoroshenko v. Russia [GC], no. 41418/04, §§ 116-122, ECHR 2015; Danilevich v. Russia, no. 31469/08, §§ 54-65, 19 October 2021; and Nusret Kaya and Others v. Turkey, nos. 43750/06 and 4 others, §§ 35-36, ECHR 2014 (extracts))?