Published on 18 July 2022

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 49072/20 Ahmet KAYA against Türkiye lodged on 2 October 2020 communicated on 28 June 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the administrative proceedings that commenced with the premature termination of the applicant’s post at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Istanbul and continued when the authorities transferred him to a different city (Erzurum) immediately after reinstating him to his position in Istanbul. The applicant brought administrative proceedings to annul his transfer but the authorities transferred him again to a city other than his original post (Kars) while the proceedings were ongoing. The applicant thereupon brought separate administrative proceedings to challenge his transfer to Kars but the authorities transferred him back to Erzurum while the proceedings were ongoing. Despite the fact that the administrative courts stayed the execution of all those transfers and annulled them as unlawful in their decisions on the merits of the cases, the applicant was not reinstated to his original post in Istanbul.

In a decision of 11 June 2020 the Constitutional Court found the applicant’s complaint concerning the non-enforcement of court decisions inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, implying that the applicant failed to bring a compensation case for his grievances.

Relying on Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant complains that the national authorities refused to comply with the administrative court’s interim and final decisions and took active steps to render nugatory the enforcement of the original judgment in his favour by transferring him to other locations while the annulment proceedings regarding the transfers were pending. He further submits that the Constitutional Court failed to provide him with an appropriate response for his Convention complaint in so far as the remedy it implied in its decision, that is to say recourse to compensation proceedings, does not lead to the enforcement of court decisions in the Turkish administrative law context.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right of access to a court under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, taken alone or in conjunction with Article 13, on account of the national authorities’ failure to comply with administrative courts’ interim and final decisions (see Okyay and Others v. Turkey , no. 36220/97, § 73, ECHR 2005‑VII; Kübler v. Germany , no. 32715/06, §§ 61-66, 13 January 2011; and Sharxhi and Others v. Albania , no. 10613/16, §§ 81-95, 11 January 2018)?

In this connection, to what extent is the Constitutional Court’s reasoning Convention compliant?