The European Court of Human Rights has found Turkey guilty in the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) case.
The case referred to the arrest en masse of hundreds of elected politicians, activists, human rights defenders in 2009.
The applicants disclosed that they did not have the opportunity to effectively challenge the lawfulness of their pre-trial detention. In this regard, they criticized the domestic courts for rejecting their applications for release without holding a hearing.
In addition, they denounced the restriction of access to the investigation file. They relied on Article 5 § 4 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
“4. Everyone deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall have the right to bring an action before a court so that he may decide speedily on the lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is unlawful. ”
The European Court of Human Rights held the applications admissible in respect of the complaint concerning the lack of an effective remedy to challenge the continued detention on remand because of the restriction of access to the files of the investigation and inadmissible for the remainder.
The Court furthermore considered that there has been a violation of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention and said:
“(a) that the respondent State is to pay to each of the applicants, within three months, EUR 250 (two hundred and fifty euros), plus any amount that may be chargeable to the applicants as a tax, for costs and expenses, to be converted in the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable on the date of settlement;
(b) that from the expiry of that period until payment, those amounts shall be increased by simple interest at a rate equal to that of the marginal lending facility of the European Central Bank applicable during that period, increased by three percentage points”
