European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

PARTIAL DECISION

Applications nos. 16128/04, 21182/04 and 23014/04
by Suphi SÜRMELİ, Edip ÇÖKMEZ and Others and Duhter EMİR
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 4 November 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

Françoise Tulkens, President,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Vladimiro Zagrebelsky,
Danutė Jočienė,
Dragoljub Popović,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Işıl Karakaş, judges,
and Sally Dollé, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on 30 April 2004,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants, Mr Suphi Sürmeli, Mr Edip Çökmez, Mr Süleyman Çökmez, Mr Fevzi Çökmez, Mr Mikail Çökmez, Mr Muhittin Çökmez and Ms Duhter Emir, are Turkish nationals who were born in 1931, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1955, 1946 and 1947 respectively and live in Hatay. They are represented before the Court by Mr Z. Emir and Mr Z. Kadayıfçı, lawyers practising in Hatay.

A.  The circumstances of the case

The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

On unspecified dates the applicants bought three plots of land in Hatay from the Samandağ Municipality (plots nos. 1215, 1154 and 1217 respectively).

The applicants subsequently constructed buildings on their respective plots in accordance with the authorised local building and settlement plan (imar planı).

On 9 September 1976 the Ministry of Construction and Settlement conducted land consolidation proceedings and defined the coastline in the area where the applicants’ land was located.

On 18 April 1995 the Samandağ Municipality, acting on behalf of the Treasury, requested the Samandağ Civil Court to determine whether the applicants’ plots were part of the coastline. They claimed that, according to the Coastal Law, the land in question could not be owned by individuals and could only be used for public benefit purposes.

On 26 April 1995 a group of experts, composed of a geomorphologist, a cartography engineer and an agricultural engineer, appointed by the court, inspected the applicants’ land and concluded that it was located on the coastline.

Following the conclusion of the expert reports, the Treasury filed three separate actions before the Samandağ Civil Court, requesting the annulment of the applicants’ title-deeds to their respective plots on the ground that they were located on the coastline.

1.  Proceedings regarding application no. 16128/04

On 12 October 2000 the Samandağ Civil Court, after having obtained two conflicting expert reports, rejected the request of the Treasury on the ground that the applicant’s plot was not part of the coastline as established by the land consolidation proceedings in 1976.

On 11 September 2001 the Court of Cassation quashed this decision. It held that similar proceedings in relation to neighbouring parcels had resulted in different findings than that reached by the first-instance court in the present case. The Court of Cassation concluded that these previous findings constituted sufficiently strong evidence to hold that the applicant’s plot was also part of the coastline.

On 28 February 2002 the Court of Cassation rejected the applicant’s request for rectification of its previous decision.

On 16 May 2002 the Samandağ Civil Court upheld the request of the Treasury in accordance with the decision of the Court of Cassation and annulled the applicant’s ownership in the title deed registry. In its decision, the first-instance court held that, pursuant to domestic law, the coast was not subject to private ownership and that, therefore, the applicant could not rely on the argument that he had acted bona fides or on the fact that he had constructed a building on the land.

The applicant’s requests for an appeal and rectification of this judgment were rejected by the Court of Cassation on 15 May 2003 and 31 October 2003 respectively.

2.  Proceedings regarding application no. 21182/04

On 2 June 2000 the Samandağ Civil Court, after having obtained additional expert reports, upheld the request of the Treasury and decided to annul the title-deed of the applicants. In its decision, the court held that, pursuant to domestic law, the coast was not subject to private ownership and that, therefore, the applicants could not rely on the argument that they had acted bona fides or on the fact that they had constructed buildings on the land.

On 17 April 2003 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment of the first-instance court and, on 6 October 2003, it rejected the applicants’ request for rectification of this decision.

On 5 November 2003 the final decision of the Court of Cassation was served on the applicants.

3.  Proceedings regarding application no. 23014/04

On 2 June 2000 the Samandağ Civil Court, after having obtained two conflicting expert reports, rejected the request of the Treasury on the ground that the applicant’s plot was not part of the coastline as established by the land consolidation proceedings in 1976.

On 13 February 2001 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment of the first-instance court for the same reasons mentioned above in application no. 16128/04.

On 11 June 2002 the Samandağ Civil Court upheld the request of the Treasury in accordance with the decision of the Court of Cassation and annulled the applicant’s ownership in the title deed registry.

The applicant’s requests for an appeal and rectification of this judgment were rejected by the Court of Cassation on 9 June 2003 and 24 December 2003 respectively.

B.  Relevant domestic law

The relevant domestic law is set out in the Court’s judgments in the similar cases of N.A. and Others v. Turkey (no. 37451/97, § 30, ECHR 2005 X) and Doğrusöz and Aslan v. Turkey (no. 1262/02, § 16, 30 May 2006).

COMPLAINTS

The applicants complained that the authorities had deprived them of their land without paying any compensation in exchange, in violation of their right to property within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

The applicant, Mr Suphi Sürmeli, also complained in application no. 16128/04 that he had not had a fair hearing under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention because the decisions of the domestic courts had not been sufficiently reasoned.

THE LAW

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case files, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the applications to the respondent Government.

The Court firstly reiterates that, although Article 6 § 1 obliges courts to give reasons for their decisions, it cannot be understood as requiring a detailed answer to every argument (Van de Hurk v. the Netherlands, judgment of 19 April 1994, § 61, Series A no. 288). The extent of this duty to give reasons may vary according to the nature of the decision and must be determined in the light of the circumstances of the case (Ruiz Torija v. Spain and Hiro Balani v. Spain, judgments of 9 December 1994, § 29 and § 27, Series A nos. 303-A and B).

The Court notes that it is evident from the documents in the case file and the facts set out above that both the first-instance court and the appellate court clearly stated the grounds on which they relied in rendering their decisions. It therefore considers that the decisions complained of cannot be considered to have lacked reasoning.

It follows that this part of application no. 16128/04 should be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to join the applications;

Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicants’ complaint concerning the deprivation of their property without any payment of compensation;

Declares the remainder of the application no. 16128/04 inadmissible.

Sally Dollé Françoise Tulkens
Registrar President