Constitutional Court: Child's Right to Life Violated Due to Receiving Shock from Power Unit

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The Constitutional Court has ruled that a three-year-old's right to life was violated when he received an electric shock after touching the door of a transformer building.

S.T., who is eight now, was seriously wounded because of the shock. His family applied to a court for violation of their child's right to life on September 2, 2015. The Chief Public Prosecutor of Kızıltepe launched an investigation into the incident. A scene investigation team performed examinations on the same day.

The interim report said that the injury endangered the child's life and could not be relieved by simple medical intervention. The prosecutor's office, however, made a decision for non-prosecution and rejected an objection to this decision.

The child's family applied to the top court on September 2, 2019, claiming that the child's right to life was violated and the investigation into the incident was not carried out effectively.

"Since electricity generation and distribution is within the scope of hazardous activity, all organizations and technical devices serving this purpose have an obligation to place technical devices safely for the protection of people's lives and body integrity," the court said in its assessment.

Compensation is 'not enough'

The court also noted that public authorities "should immediately implement appropriate administrative measures to protect children and people in need of special protection."

The top court concluded that compensation verdicts against responsible officials would not be enough for the state to provide effective judicial protection in cases where the lives of children, who do not have the judgment abilities as adults, were put in danger.

"It should be emphasized that the judicial response of the state to this event is important in terms of avoiding similar events," it said.

"In this case, it was concluded that the compensation case had no effect on the application in terms of the exhaustion of the remedies and the requirements for effective judicial protection." (AÖ/VK)