European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 21568/05
by Ali SARAK
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 31 March 2009 as a Chamber composed of:

Françoise Tulkens, President,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Vladimiro Zagrebelsky,
Danutė Jočienė,
András Sajó,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Işıl Karakaş, judges,

and Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 20 May 2005,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Ali Sarak, is a Turkish national who was born in 1981 and lives in Şanlıurfa. He was represented before the Court by Mr N. Çevirci, a lawyer practising in Şanlıurfa.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

In 2001 the applicant started his military service. After a few months, he was diagnosed with Hepatitis B and, as a result, he was discharged. On 11 December 2002 the applicant brought an action in the Military Administrative Court against the Ministry of Defence, requesting pecuniary and non-pecuniary compensation for having allegedly been infected with the Hepatitis B virus during his military service. Based on an expert report, which stated that the applicant could have been infected before starting his military service, on 1 December 2004 the Military Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s case.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that his right to a fair hearing was violated by the judgment of the Military Administrative Court. In his view, the court erred in the evaluation of facts and evidence.

THE LAW

The applicant complained that the domestic court had erred in its judgment.

The Court recalls that it is not its task to act as an appeal court of “fourth instance” by calling into question the outcome of the domestic proceedings. The domestic courts are best placed for assessing the relevance of evidence to the issues in the case and for interpreting and applying the rules of substantive and procedural law (see, amongst many authorities, Vidal v. Belgium, 22 April 1992, § 32, Series A no. 235 B).

During the proceedings, the applicant was represented by a lawyer and was able to state his case and challenge the evidence which he considered false. There is no indication in the case file that the decision of the national court was not based on the domestic law in the light of the particular circumstances of the case. There are no elements which could lead to a conclusion that the domestic court acted in an arbitrary or unreasonable manner. There is therefore no appearance of a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

In the light of the foregoing, the Court finds that the application should be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court by a majority

Declares the application inadmissible.

Françoise Elens-Passos Françoise Tulkens
Deputy Registrar President