Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 167

October 2013

Yüksel v. Turkey ( dec. ) - 49756/09

Decision 1.10.2013 [Section II]

Article 35

Admissibility

Applicant’s failure to submit a short summary of his 39-page application in disregard of the requirement of the Practice Direction on the Institution of Proceedings: preliminary objection dismissed

Facts – Relying on Article 2 of the Convention, the applicant complained before the European Court that his brother had died as a result of the use of arbitrary and disproportionate force by police officers. He also complained of the inactivity and ineffectiveness of the investigation into the circumstances of the death.

The Government claimed that the application to the Court had not complied with Rule 47 of the Rules of Court and with paragraph 11 of the Practice Direction on the Institution of Proceedings, in that the events described in the application form and the applicant’s complaints had not been submitted in a short summary, the application being 39 pages long. In this connection, they submitted that as the application form had been filled in by the applicant’s lawyer, there was no excuse for failing to comply with the requirements of Rule 47. They therefore invited the Court to reject the application.

Law – Article 35: Under Rule 47 of the Rules of Court , an application form must contain, among other things, a statement of the facts and a statement of the alleged violation(s) of the Convention and the relevant arguments. At the material time paragraph 11 of the Practice Direction issued by the President of the Court stated that where an application was longer than ten pages (not including annexes containing copies of documents), the applicant must also submit a short summary.*

In the present case, the applicant had described the facts in detail in his application form and clearly indicated the violations of the Convention which he was alleging. In consequence, his complaints had been submitted in accordance with Rule 47. The provision in the Practice Direction relied on by the Government could by no means be equated with one of the grounds for admissibility set out in Article 35 of the Convention. It followed that the Government had no grounds for requesting the rejection of the application for the sole reason that it considered it too lengthy. The Government’s arguments on this point were therefore rejected.

Conclusion : preliminary objection dismissed (unanimously).

Article 2: It was not established that the State had failed in its positive obligation to protect the right to life of the applicant’s brother, and there were no grounds to believe that he had been a victim of ill-treatment or that the facts of the case had not been properly by the domestic authorities.

Conclusion : inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).

* The Practice Direction was updated on 1 January 2014 and no longer contains a reference to the number of pages.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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