Published on 2 January 2023

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 3174/20 Satılmış BİLGİLİ against Türkiye lodged on 2 January 2020 communicated on 5 December 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicant’s pre-trial detention for suspicion of usury. On 23 August 2017 the applicant was placed under pre-trial detention within the context of a criminal investigation initiated against him and his co-accuseds. The objections to his pre-trial detention and his requests for release were rejected by the competent courts on the basis of the nature of the alleged offence, the state of the evidence, the period that the applicant had spent in detention and the strong suspicion that he had committed the offence in question. On an unspecified date, it was also decided to restrict the applicant’s access to the investigation file. The applicant argues that his objections against this decision were not examined by the competent courts. The applicant was released on 27 August 2018.

The applicant mainly complains about the lack of relevant and sufficient reasons to justify his continued pre-trial detention, the restriction of his access to the investigation file, and the belated examination by the competent judicial authorities of his requests for release.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the judges who ordered the applicant’s initial pre-trial detention and the prolongation of his detention, and who examined the objections lodged against those decisions, fulfil their obligation to provide relevant and sufficient grounds for the deprivation of liberty in question (see, in particular, Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova [GC], no. 23755/07, § 102, ECHR 2016 (extracts))?

2. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective remedy by which he could challenge the lawfulness of his deprivation of liberty, as required by Article 5 § 4 of the Convention? In particular, the Government are invited to respond to the following complaints made by the applicant that:

(i) he had been unable to challenge his detention in an effective manner because of the restriction imposed on his access to the investigation file; and

(ii) his objections to his detention had been examined belatedly.