233 Thousand Individual Applications to Constitutional Court in 7 Years

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After Constitutional Court President Zühtü Aslan stated that "the aim of individual applications is to give verdicts that would eliminate the sources of rights violations, rather than eliminating these violations by examining them one by one" and added that the individual applications have been gradually increasing, the Court has published the "Statistics on Individual Applications."

Accordingly, between September 23, 2012 to June 30, 2019, 233 thousand 330 individual applications were submitted to the Constitutional Court and 186 thousand 701 of these applications have been concluded so far.

While 89 percent of the concluded applications were found "inadmissible", the court ruled for "at least one right violation" in 7 thousand 835 applications, gave a verdict of "no violation" in 471 applications and a verdict of "administrative rejection" in 11 thousand 814 applications.

There was a striking increase in the number of rulings of "at least one violation of right" in 2018. That is, while the court ruled for "at least one right violation" in 282 cases in 2016 and in one thousand 25 cases in 2017, this number was 2 thousand 166 in 2018. In the first half of 2019, the Court has ruled for "at least one right violation" in 691 applications so far.

The Constitutional Court rulings of rights violations based on rights and freedoms are as follows (including right to a fair trial within a reasonable time and combined files):

• Right to a fair trial: 4 thousand 250 (53 percent)
• Right of property: 2 thousand 454 (31 percent)
• Freedom of expression: 440 (5 percent)
• The right of privacy and family life: 198 (2 percent)
• Prohibition of maltreatment: 159 (2 percent)
• Right to personal freedom and security: 152 (2 percent)
• Prohibition of discrimination: 104 (1 percent)
• Right to life: 89 (1 percent)
• Freedom of association: 55 (1 percent)
• Right to protection of tangible and intangible assets: 38 (0 percent)
• Right to assembly and demonstrations: 37 (0 percent)
• Presumption of innocence: 21 (0 percent)
• Right to an effective remedy: 12 (0 percent)
• No crime, no punishment without a previous penal law: 11 (0 percent)
• Freedom of religion and conscience: 7 (0 percent)
• Right to vote,to be elected and engage in politics: 6 (0 percent)
• Right to education: 3 (0 percent)

*The Court can rule for more than one right violation at a time

The distribution of rights violations by years is as follows:

• 2013: 78 (1 percent)
• 2014: 782 (10 percent)
• 2015: 1.854 (23 percent)
• 2016: 1.315 (16 percent)
• 2017: 1.083 (13 percent)
• 2018: 2.221 (28 percent)
• 2019/2: 703 (9 percent)

Violation of right to a fair trial by assurances

The distribution of "violations of right to a fair trial" within the indicated seven-year period by Constitutional assurances is as follows:

• Right to a fair trial within reasonable time: 2,966 (57 percent)
• Equality of arms principle / Principle of adversarial proceedings: 825 (16 percent)
• Right to a justified ruling: 589 (11 percent)
• Right to an equitable trial: 536 (10 percent)
• Right to access to court: 244 (5 percent)
• Right of call to witness: 16 (0 percent)
• Other: 14 (0 percent)
• Right to legal assistance: 12 (0 percent)

(HA/SD)