Information Note on the Court’s case-law 38

January 2002

Bayram and Yıldırım v. Turkey (dec.) - 38587/97

Decision 29.1.2002 [Section IV]

Article 35

Article 35-1

Six-month period

Six month period starting to run when applicants become or should have become aware of circumstances which made domestic remedies ineffective: inadmissible

In April 1994 the first applicant’s husband and the second applicant’s son were tr avelling in a vehicle which hit a mine placed on the road and exploded. They both died in the explosion. The public prosecutor launched an investigation into the incident. In May 1994 he issued a decision whereby the incident fell within the competence of the prosecutor’s office attached to the Diyarbakır State Security Court, as he suspected unidentified members of the PKK of being responsible. In September 1997 the applicants lodged a petition with the office of the public prosecutor of the State Security Court in order to obtain information about the investigation. The public prosecutor replied on the same day that the investigation was ongoing. The applicants have received no information on the investigation ever since.

Inadmissible under Articles 2, 6 a nd 13: If no effective domestic remedies are available, the six-month time-limit starts running in principle from the date of the act complained of. However, special considerations can apply in exceptional cases where an applicant who availed himself or he rself of a domestic remedy only became aware, or should have become aware, at a later stage of circumstances that made this remedy ineffective. In such instances, the six-month period may be calculated from that time. In the present case, the event complai ned of by the applicants took place in April 1994, while they lodged their petition with the Diyarbakır Public Prosecutor in September 1997, i.e. almost three and a half years later. They argued that they became aware of the ineffectiveness of the domestic remedies following the reply to their petition. However, assuming that there were no effective domestic remedies, the applicants must be considered to have been aware of the lack of any effective criminal investigation long before they petitioned the publ ic prosecutor. If, as they alleged, they became aware of it only in September 1997, it must be attributed to their own negligence. Furthermore, they failed to substantiate the existence of specific circumstances which could have prevented them from observi ng the six-month time-limit set under Article 35 § 1.

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

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