Fatma Kalkan, Application No: 2013/9785, 17 July 2014

A) Facts

The applicant received partial payment as compensation for expropriated property. Following the enforcement procedure initiated by the applicant, the full payment was received. However, due to lack of interest payment, the applicant applied to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that her rights to fair trial and to property had been breached. In 2013, when Law no. 6384 on the Settlement of Some Applications Lodged with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by Means of Paying Compensation came into force, the applicant lodged an application with the Ministry of Justice Human Rights Compensation Commission (“The Commission”. The applicant was awarded compensation for the violation of her right to demand the timely execution of a finalized court decision; the rest of her claims were dismissed. In the meantime, in Mahmut Eren and others v. Turkey, the ECtHR ruled that, in accordance with Law no. 6384, applicants first had to apply to the Commission. The ECtHR also concluded that the claims on the violation of the right to property were unfounded since there was no significant loss of value caused by the disparity between legal interest rates and inflation rates.

B) Judgment and Reasoning of the Court

The Court commented extensively on the remedial procedure introduced by Law no. 6384 and noted that the ECtHR approved of Turkey’s efforts to resolve systemic issues in relation to its justice system on the domestic level. The Court also underlined that, as of 23/9/2012, the ECtHR considered the Commission as an effective domestic remedy to be exhausted in cases concerning the right to be heard in reasonable time or in complaints related to the execution of decisions. This meant that the Constitutional Court also had jurisdiction ratione materiae and ratione temporis.

In the present case, the applicant did not contest that the Commission awarded her compensation and did not argue that she had not received any payment. Since the violation was already compensated for, the Court ruled that the applicant no longer had victimhood status in relation to the execution of court decisions in timely manner. With regards to her claims on the right to property, the Court stated that these claims were dismissed as unfounded by the ECtHR and the finalized decision thus fell outside its jurisdiction temporally. Hence all the applicant’s claims were deemed inadmissible.

C) The Significance of the Judgement

This decision cites ECtHR case-law which instigated the establishment of the Human Rights Compensation Commission, and comments extensively on the Commission and its procedures introduced as an effective domestic remedy. In future cases concerning proceedings before the Commission, Fatma Kalkan is often referred to.