European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

PARTIAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 28127/09
by Anvar GHORBANOV and Others
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 24 August 2010 as a Chamber composed of:

      Françoise Tulkens, President,
      Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
      Danutė Jočienė,
      András Sajó,
      Nona Tsotsoria,
      Işıl Karakaş,
      Kristina Pardalos, judges,
and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar.

Having regard to the above application lodged on 10 April 2009,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The nineteen applicants, whose names are listed in the annex, are Uzbek nationals. They consist of two brothers and a sister with their spouses and siblings, forming four families. The applicants live in hiding and are represented before the Court by Mr and Mrs S. Yılmaz, lawyers practising in Istanbul.

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

After some ten days the applicants asked for help from the Iranian gendarmerie, who detained them for two days before deporting them back to Turkey.

Both the applicants' deportations were brought to the attention of the national and international public through press releases from various NGOs and the UNHCR. Likewise, a Turkish parliamentarian issued a press release within the Parliament and criticised the applicants' deportations as well as the existing refugee protection system in Turkey.

On an unspecified date the applicants' representative sent letters to, inter alia, the Human Rights Commission of the Turkish Parliament, the Human Rights Commission of the Van Governorship and to the Ministry of Interior. In its reply dated 22 April 2009, the Human Rights Commission of the Van Governorship stated that the applicants had been deported to Iran in compliance with the existing law, that Iran was a safe third country where the applicants had lived between 2001 and 2007. With reference to an investigation carried out following the applicants' complaints, it was further stated that the allegations of ill-treatment by the police officers who carried out the applicants' deportation were found to be baseless and unsubstantiated.

During their two deportations, the authorities took the applicants' mobile phones, some documents and 262 Turkish liras.

COMPLAINTS

The applicants complain under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention that their repeated deportation to Iran exposed them to a real risk of death or ill‑treatment in Iran as well as to a risk of being returned to Uzbekistan by the Iranian authorities. They add under Article 13 of the Convention that they had no effective domestic remedies to challenge their deportation. They further allege under Article 3 of the Convention that they were ill-treated by the police officers during their deportation to Iran.

The applicants invoke Article 5 of the Convention and allege that they were unlawfully deprived of their liberty, denied access to their representative, not informed of the reasons for their detention and not given the right to challenge their detention.

The applicants further claim that they were not given the right to challenge their deportation before domestic courts, that their deportation infringed their right to respect for private and family life, that they were discriminated against because of their nationality, that they were deported in a manner which prevented them from lodging an application with the Court before their deportation, that their personal belongings were taken away from them before their deportation, and that they were deported collectively and in breach of the procedural safeguards relating to the expulsion of aliens. In connection with these complaints the applicants invoke Articles 6, 8, 14, and 34 of the Convention as well as Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1, Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 7.

THE LAW

The applicants complained that their repeated summary deportation to Iran, without a deportation order and whilst they had valid residence permits in the case of the first deportation, raised an issue under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention.

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case files, 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 applicants asserted that they had been tricked into going to the Directorate of General Security to collect sustenance prior to their first deportation. They added that they had not been informed of the reasons for their deprivation of liberty during both deportations and that they had no means of challenging the lawfulness of their deprivation of liberty. In this connection they relied on Article 5 §§ 1, 2 and 4 of the Convention.

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case files, 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 applicants complained that they had been ill-treated by police officers both times they were deported to Iran. They added that they had been taken hostage by people-smugglers following their first deportation, that they could have been shot by border patrol officers of both countries in between the repeated deportations, and that the Iranian authorities could have deported them to Uzbekistan. They had therefore been exposed to a real risk of death and ill-treatment. In connection with these complaints the applicants invoked Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention.

The Court observes that the applicants' complaints, that they had been taken hostage by people-smugglers, that they had run the risk of being shot by border patrol officers and that they had been ill-treated by police officers during the two deportation incidents, are not substantiated. The applicants have not provided any evidence or detailed information and therefore have not laid the basis of an arguable claim in respect of these complaints.

As for their complaint regarding the risk of deportation to Uzbekistan from Iran, the Court notes that the applicants were recognised as refugees by the UNHCR in Iran, where they lived for approximately six years before they left the country. The Court also notes that the applicants sought help from the Iranian authorities upon their second deportation and that they were returned to Turkey.

It follows that this part of the application must be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

The applicants further raised the above-mentioned complaints under Articles 6, 8, 14 and 34 of the Convention as well as Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 (see complaints section above).

The Court notes that Article 6 does not apply to asylum proceedings as such proceedings do not concern the determination of either civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge (see Maaouia v. France [GC], no. 39652/98, § 40, ECHR 2000-X). In addition Turkey has not ratified the Protocol No. 4 and Protocol No. 7. Therefore the applicants' complaints under these Articles are incompatible ratione materiae and ratione personae respectively. As regards the remaining complaints under Articles 8, 14, 34, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 the Court finds that an examination of the material submitted to it does not disclose any appearance of a violation of these provisions. It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be declared inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

 

Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicants' complaints concerning their repeated deportation, lack of an effective domestic remedy in this respect, unlawfulness of deprivation of their liberty, their right to be informed promptly of the reasons for their detention, and their right to take proceedings to challenge the lawfulness of their detention;

Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.

 

Stanley Naismith                                                                 Françoise Tulkens
       Registrar                                                                              President

List of applicants and their birth years:

 

Anvar Ghorbanov, 1970

Nasibeh Ghorbanova, 1975,

Nadereh Ghorbanova, 1994

Omokolsoum Ghorbanova, 1996

Mohammad Ghorbanov, 2001

Ibrahim Ghorbanov, 2002

 

Ologhbeig Rahmanov, 1969

Tajkhan Rahmanova, 1973

Ameneh Rahmanova, 1996

Mohammadali Rahmanov, 1998

Maryam Rahmanova, 2003

Fatima Rahmanova, 2008

Zehra Rahmanova, 2008

 

Oktamjan Rahmanov, 1973

Sedaghat Rahmanova, 1978

Rahimeh Rahmanova, 1998

Marziyeh Rahmanova, 2000

 

Zaher Tordiev, 1980

Maheireh Tordiev, 1993