Constitutional Court Rejects Appeal for ‘Effective Investigation’ in Hrant Dink Murder Case

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

The Constitutional Court has rejected the appeal for effective investigation raised by the family of Hrant Dink, the Editor-in-Chief of Agos newspaper murdered in 2007. The application of the family has been rejected on the ground that legal remedies have not been exhausted.

In 2016, the family of the deceased journalist appealed to the Constitutional Court against the verdict of non-prosecution given for 24 people including defendants of the Ergenekon case retired Brigadier Veli Küçük, Kemal Kerinçsiz, former Vice Governor of İstanbul Ergun Güngör and retired National Intelligence Organization (MİT) official Özel Yılmaz.

In the three-year period since family's appeal, the Ministry of Justice presented its opinion in June 2019. In its opinion, the Ministry indicated that the trial was still continuing and provided information about the file.

Announcing its decision on the application of the family, the Constitutional Court has stated that the trial process has not yet been finalized.

'Data need to be examined as a whole'

In the related decision of the court, it has been indicated that "before the judicial authorities clarify the reasons and conditions of the incident of death, namely its conditions of occurrence, it is not possible for the Constitutional Court to examine the allegations of the applicants and whether an effective investigation has been conducted into the incident as a whole."

Accordingly, the court has concluded that the issues in question "need to be examined by handling the data acquired in the process of trial as a whole."

'Legal remedies have not been exhausted'

"With the justifications explained above, without examining it in terms of other criteria of admissibility, it shall be ruled that the application is inadmissible on the ground that legal remedies have not been exhausted", the Constitutional Court has indicated and added:

"It has been concluded that the allegation of violation of right to life is inadmissible considering that legal remedies have not been exhausted." (HA/SD)