Turkey’s Constitutional Court received 551,156 individual applications between 2012 and Sept. 30 of this year, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday, citing statistics announced by the court on its website.
The right to file an individual application with the Constitutional Court was introduced in 2012.
The court broke down the figures according to the number of applications made by year. In 2012, it received 1,342 individual applications, while it received a whopping 80,756 in 2016, a year marked by a military coup attempt. In 2017 the number of individual applications fell to 40,530 before it increased again to 66,121 in 2021 and 109,779 in 2022. And between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 of this year, the figure was 80,218.
Of the total number of applications between 2012 and 2023, the court has ruled on 422,016 of the cases so far, corresponding to 76.6 percent.
Fully 129,140 applications filed with the court were still waiting to be concluded as of Sept. 30.
The court found 79.5 percent of the decided cases (335,414) to be “inadmissible.” It found that “at least one [constitutional] right was violated” in just 16.7 percent, or 70,364, of the total applications ruled on.
Of the 71.484 violation rulings, 79.0 percent (56,443) were related to a violation of the applicant’s right to trial within a reasonable period of time; 5 percent (3,566) to a violation of the right to a fair trial; 4.9 percent (3,519) to a violation of the right of freedom of expression; 4.9 percent (3,508) to a violation of the right to own property; 1.9 percent (1,391) to a violation of the right to hold meetings and demonstrations; 1.6 percent (1,140) to a violation of the right to protection of individual and family life; and 0.8 percent (572) concerned violation the right guaranteeing freedom from torture and ill-treatment.