Constitutional Court will not examine 'reasonable length of proceedings' applications

Today, the Constitutional Court (AYM) issued a historic decision regarding the right to a "reasonable length of proceedings."

According to the decision published in the Official Gazette, the high court will not examine applications related to the right to a "reasonable length of proceedings."

With this decision, citizens will no longer be able to directly apply to the AYM for reasons of 'prolonged proceedings' until a new judicial remedy is established.

As a rationale, the AYM cited that these decisions, which are limited to determining the amount of compensation, no longer contribute to the protection and enhancement of human rights after more than 55,000 violation decisions. It argued that it now serves only as a compensation court in this regard.

"Covers 52% of the workload"

Today, applications for the right to a reasonable length of proceedings constitute 52.4% of the workload of the AYM. Since the individual application was introduced in 2012, there have been 115,535 applications related to this matter submitted to the high court. AYM has concluded 69,248 of these applications, making it the most common type of violation decision issued by the court. The number of applications is increasing day by day. For example, in 2020, there were 4,772 applications, which increased to 22,442 in 2021 and 60,484 in 2022. As of June 30, 2023, there have been 20,947 applications.

Köksal: AYM said to the Parliament, "Fix this system"

According to human rights lawyer Tuğçe Duygu Köksal, the decision is of vital importance for citizens. This is because the Constitutional Court (AYM) has stated that the reasonable length of proceedings is a systemic issue and is requesting the legislative body, the Parliament, to come up with a solution to this problem. As Köksal puts it, the AYM is telling the Parliament, "Fix this system and establish a way."

Köksal stated that the logic behind the decision is correct and that one of the biggest problems in domestic law is the prolonged legal proceedings.

AYM had previously issued a pilot decision

Until March 9, 2023, it had been decided that complaints related to the right to a trial within a reasonable time pending before the AYM would be examined by the Ministry of Justice Human Rights Compensation Commission. However, they limited the authority of the Compensation Commission to applications until March 10, 2023. This led to the continuation of the systemic problem. Of course, after that date, complaints of prolonged trials continued to come to the AYM.

According to lawyer Köksal, this new decision came after such a process. And the High Court has requested a domestic solution to this systemic problem by way of expanding the scope of the Compensation Commission or introducing another way." (HA/PE)