The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on Tuesday that Turkey had violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by detaining 23 judges and prosecutors after a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2016, ordering that Turkey pay each applicant 5,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages.
The ECtHR ruled in the case of Altun and Others v. Türkiye that the suspicion which constituted the basis for the 23 applicants’ pretrial detention was not reasonable, pointing out that the evidence in the applicants’ files did not justify the measure.
The court held that there was a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the ECHR due to the lack of reasonable suspicion and ordered the Turkish government to pay each of the applicants, except for Kenan Yiğit, who did not submit a request for compensation, 5,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages, an amount totaling 110,000 euros ($122,502).
The development was announced on X by legal practitioner Kadir Öztürk, who represents one of the applicants, on Tuesday.
AİHM, Türkiye’ye karşı yine çok sayıda ihlal kararı vererek toplamda 121 bin 740 avro (4.626.500 Türk lirası) tazminat ödenmesine karar verdi
1️⃣ Darbe girişimi sonrası tutuklanan ve aralarında bir müvekkilimin de bulunduğu toplam 23 hâkim ya da savcının hakimlik teminatına…
— Kadir Öztürk (@LegalCounsel_TR) September 24, 2024
Öztürk said the Strasbourg court also found a violation in the case of Kurt and Others v. Turkey, which combined the complaints of 10 applicants, concerning the unlawful scanning and recording of their correspondence by the National Judicial Network Information System (UYAP) without legal basis while they were detained in various Turkish penal institutions.
Öztürk said the ECtHR awarded 500 euros ($556) in non-pecuniary damages to four applicants, rejecting the compensation claims of the remaining six. The court stated that the Turkish government is required to pay these amounts within three months.
According to Öztürk, the court also ordered the government to pay Gürkan Çiftçi 9,750 euros ($10,858) in non-pecuniary damages for violating his right to respect for private and family life, stipulated in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), by monitoring and recording the applicant’s meetings with his lawyer in prison and the monitoring of the documents exchanged between him and his lawyer.
All the applicants Öztürk mentioned were accused of membership in the Gülen movement, inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Erdoğan blames for the coup attempt.
Members of the Turkish judiciary had been arrested after the failed coup as part of a mass crackdown on the movement, which denies any involvement.
Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces, were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.