In its Keser Altıntaş decision published in the Official Gazette dated October 10, 2023, the Constitutional Court announced that it would no longer consider individual applications alleging violations of the right to a trial within a reasonable time. It is quite unusual for a court to decide not to review applications related to matters within its jurisdiction, and more importantly, it appears to be in clear violation of the constitution. According to Article 36/2 of the Constitution, 'No court shall abstain from hearing a case within its jurisdiction.' How and why did the Constitutional Court make such a decision despite this explicit constitutional provision?The failure to resolve cases within a reasonable timeframe remains a persistent and structural issue within the Turkish judicial system, necessitating comprehensive structural reforms for its fundamental resolution. Regrettably, Turkish governments and the judiciary have not undertaken significant reforms to address this underlying problem. Consequently, individuals whose cases remained unresolved for extended periods turned to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) even before individual applications to the Constitutional Court became recognized. In 2012, following the introduction of individual applications to the Constitutional Court, to alleviate the substantial caseload at both the ECtHR and the Constitutional Court, the ECtHR issued the pilot judgment in the case of Ümmühan Kaplan v. Turkey, while the Constitutional Court issued the pilot judgment in the case of Nevriye Kuruç in 2022. Both pilot judgments identified structural issues and called for the establishment of a domestic mechanism to address cases exceeding reasonable timeframes.Following the Ümmühan Kaplan judgment, the Compensation Commission was established under the Ministry of Justice through Law No. 6384. The Commission ruled on the inadmissibility of applications brought before it and directed applicants to apply to the Commission for their cases. While this process helped alleviate the backlog of reasonable time applications before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), a new backlog of reasonable time applications started accumulating before the Constitutional Court.According to the Constitutional Court's statistics, from September 2012, when individual applications began, until the end of September 2023, a total of 33,414 reasonable time applications were submitted, out of which 86,426 were processed. 4In its Nevriye Kuruç judgment, the Constitutional Court expressed its inability to adequately fulfill its role in safeguarding fundamental rights due to the overwhelming number of reasonable time applications. It recognized a systemic issue related to the right to a trial within a reasonable time and emphasized that despite various measures taken to address this structural problem, an effective remedy should be established in accordance with Article 40 of the Constitution to compensate for damages resulting from the violation of this right.Subsequently, Law No. 7445 amended Provisional Article 2 of Law No. 6384, enabling reasonable time applications pending before the Constitutional Court as of March 9, 2023, to be referred to the Compensation Commission following the Court's determination of "inadmissibility." However, the Constitutional Court, unsatisfied with this amendment, announced in its Keser Altıntaş decision that it would not review reasonable time applications unless a permanent mechanism for handling such cases was established before individual applications. As a result, it decided to dismiss individual applications filed after March 10, 2013.However, it should be noted that this decision did not resolve the issue but rather exacerbated it. To begin with, while the Constitutional Court's concerns regarding the implementation of the pilot judgment's requirements are valid, as previously mentioned, this decision is in clear contradiction to Article 36/2 of the Constitution. According to this article, no court has the authority to abstain from considering a case within its jurisdiction. Therefore, the Constitutional Court cannot exempt itself from its duty unless the Parliament passes a law establishing a mechanism for addressing these complaints. It cannot evade its responsibility by misinterpreting Article 80 of its own Rules of Procedure in the face of this explicit constitutional prohibition."Additionally, the Constitutional Court's reference to the ECtHR judgment in Burmych and others v. Ukraine ([BD]) may be misleading. In that judgment, the ECtHR dismissed the applications before it due to the ongoing structural issue of non-implementation of judicial decisions in Ukraine, as highlighted in the pilot judgment. The ECtHR subsequently entrusted the implementation of these applications to the Committee of Ministers. Essentially, the applicants in that case ended up with a similar outcome to what they would have experienced if the Constitutional Court had found a violation. However, it's worth noting that there is no mechanism in place to supervise and ensure the enforcement of the Constitutional Court's decisions.On the contrary, following this decision, there is no longer any mechanism available within domestic law to address reasonable time complaints, leaving individuals with no alternative but to turn to the ECtHR for redress. This is likely to add to the already significant workload of the ECtHR, which is already burdened with applications against Turkey, and could further strain the relationship between Turkey and the Council of Europe.However, the most concerning aspect is the plight of citizens of the Republic of Turkey whose right to a fair trial has been violated. These citizens find themselves in a state of helplessness, as their lives have been marred by unjust regulations, unlawful practices, unnecessary investigations, and protracted trials, often stemming from the actions of incompetent, unqualified, or corrupt members of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.

Ümmühan Kaplan V ile ilgili hikayeler