European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 9639/07
Efil YILDIRIM and Others
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 10 January 2012 as a Committee composed of:

Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre, president,
Guido Raimondi,
Helen Keller, juges,
and Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 21 February 2007,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants, Ms Efil Yıldırım, Ferrah Yıldırım, and Mr Enes Yıldırım are Turkish nationals who were born in 1984, 1961, and 1996 respectively and live in Ankara. Their application was lodged on 21 February 2007. They are represented before the Court by Mr E. Dost and Mr H. Dost, lawyers practising in Ankara. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent.

The applicants complained under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention. On 29 December 1999, the first applicant’s husband and the father of the other applicants, was killed during a fight. On 6 March 2000 the applicants initiated compensation proceedings against the perpetrators. According to the information submitted by the Government, the proceedings ended on 19 January 2009.

The complaints concerning the length of the civil proceedings and the lack of an effective remedy for their unreasonable length were communicated to the Government, who submitted their observations on the admissibility and merits. The observations were forwarded to the applicants, who were invited to submit their own observations. No reply was received to the Registry’s letter.

By letter dated 14 September 2011, sent by registered post, the applicants’ representative was notified that the period allowed for submission of their observations had expired on 6 September 2010 and that no extension of time had been requested. The representative’s attention was drawn to Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention, which provides that the Court may strike a case out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that the applicants do not intend to pursue the application. On 15 November 2011 this letter was returned to the Registry. According to the information obtained from the website of the Turkish Postal Service, “the letter was not received in the retention period”.

THE LAW

The Court considers that, in these circumstances, the applicants may be regarded as no longer wishing to pursue their application, within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine, the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the continued examination of the case.

In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.

Françoise Elens-Passos Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre
Deputy Registrar President