European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

PARTIAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 3212/05
by Şinasi SÖKMEN
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 10 June 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

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

Having regard to the above application lodged on 30 December 2004,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Şinasi Sökmen, is a Turkish national who was born in 1949 and lives in Adana. He is represented before the Court by Mr I. Gül, a lawyer practising in Ankara.

A.  The circumstances of the case

On 22 February 1993 the General Directorate of National Roads and Highways decided to expropriate the applicant’s land in Gölbaşı, Ankara. The applicant initially raised an objection before the domestic courts against the expropriation decision, failing which he filed an action on 20 December 2001 before the Gölbaşı Civil Court of General Jurisdiction for increased compensation.

Making an assessment of the documents collected during the proceedings and relying on the last expert report submitted to it on the value of the property in question, on 6 May 2003 the first-instance court awarded the applicant 531,192,000 Turkish liras (TRL) of additional compensation plus interest at the statutory rate.

On 9 December 2003 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment on the ground, inter alia, that the first-instance court had chosen to rely on the expert report which had made the lowest assessment of the value of the applicant’s property out of the three reports, whereas it ought to have chosen the report the value assessment of which fell in between the other two.

On 7 April 2004 the Gölbaşı Civil Court of General Jurisdiction awarded the applicant TRL 891,192,000 of additional compensation, plus interest at the statutory rate.

Following the applicant’s appeal, the Court of Cassation upheld the decision of the Gölbaşı Civil Court of General Jurisdiction on 14 September 2004.

According to the case file, the applicant had not yet been paid the due amount determined by the first-instance court.

B.  Relevant domestic law and practice

The relevant domestic law and practice are set out in the case of Tunç v. Turkey (no. 54040/00, §§ 16-17, 24 May 2005).

COMPLAINTS

The applicant alleged that the failure of the authorities to comply with the domestic court judgment constituted a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

The applicant complained that the rate of interest for delay payable on the additional compensation for expropriation had been too low and that the expropriating authority had delayed settling the relevant amounts. He maintained that he had been the victim of a breach of Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

The applicant further alleged under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that he did not have a fair hearing as the domestic courts had failed to assess the facts correctly, granting him an insufficient amount of compensation. He contended that neither the first-instance court’s judgment nor the decisions of the Court of Cassation had been reasoned. He also added that the amount of costs and expenses awarded by the domestic court had not covered his actual expenditures for the proceedings.

THE LAW

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of these complaints 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 application to the respondent Government.

The Court reiterates that while Article 6 § 1 of the Convention guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down any rules on the admissibility of evidence or the way it should be assessed, which are therefore primarily matters for regulation by national law and the national courts (see Schenk v. Switzerland, judgment of 12 July 1988, Series A no. 140, p. 29, §§ 45 46). The Court further notes that the extent of the duty of courts to give reasons may vary and must be determined in the light of the circumstances of the case. In dismissing an appeal, an appellate court may, in principle, simply endorse the reasons for the lower court’s decision (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 26, ECHR 1999 I, with further references).

The Court notes that there is no indication in the present case file that the applicant could not duly present his arguments or state his case fully; nor is there any indication of unfairness or arbitrariness concerning the assessment of the facts or evidence or the interpretation of the domestic law, in possible breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The judgments delivered by the first-instance court explain the facts, the parties’ submissions, the expert reports and the court’s interpretation, as well as the legal provisions applied. Therefore, the requirements of Article 6 in these respects have been met.

It follows that these complaints are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicant’s complaints concerning the authorities’ failure to execute the domestic court’s judgment and the insufficiency of the interest applied to the additional compensation;

Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.

Sally Dollé Françoise Tulkens
Registrar President