Turkey Ranks Second in ECtHR Again

The Annual Report of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has shown that Turkey has been the second country, about which the court gave a judgement in 2018. Turkey has also ranked fourth among the countries awaiting a judgement.

İstanbul

* Photograph taken from the ECtHR Annual Report 2018

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The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) released its Annual Report 2018 on January 24. According to the report, the ECtHR gave a judgement on 1,014 cases throughout 2018.

While the court pronounced 248 judgements regarding Russia, it gave 146 rulings on cases related to Turkey. Placed on top of the list of countries, about which the ECtHR gave a ruling in 2018, Russia and Turkey have been followed by Ukraine and Romania with 91 and 82 rulings respectively. Turkey was also the second country, about which the court gave a ruling in 2017.

The report has also shown that in more than 140 of its judgements on Turkey, the ECtHR ruled that at least one right of the applicants was violated. While the court ruled that no rights violations were committed in four cases, two judgements of the court ended in mutual consent.

Turkey ranks fourth in number of applications

At the ECtHR, which accepts applications from 47 countries member to the Council of Europe (CoE), there are a total of 56 thousand 350 applications awaiting a judgement. This figure was 56 thousand 250 in 2017.

72 percent of the cases awaiting a judgement are related to six countries. While 11 thousand 750 applications regarding Russia are awaiting a judgement from the court, Russia is followed by Romania with 8 thousand 500 applications and by Ukraine with 7 thousand 250 applications.

Followed by Italy and Romania, Turkey has ranked fourth with 7 thousand 107 cases pending a judgement to be given by the ECtHR.

The cases on Turkey awaiting a judgement account for 12.6 percent of all applications waiting to be concluded.

ECtHR ruled 'violation of right to fair trial' for 41 times

In its judgements on Turkey, the court ruled for the following rights violations:

Right to a fair trial: 41
Freedom of expression: 40
Right to liberty and security: 29
Effective investigation: 15
Freedom of assembly and association: 11
Inhuman or degrading treatment: 11
Trial within a reasonable time: 9
Right to respect for private life: 8
Right to an effective remedy: 7
Right to protection of private property: 3
Violation of nonenforcement: 3
Protection of right to life: 1
Freedom of thought: 1
Prohibition of discrimination: 3
Right to a free election: 1
Other articles: 1

The Annual Report of the ECtHR for 2017 previously showed that the court gave 116 rulings on Turkey in 2017. In 99 of these cases, the court ruled that at least one right of the applicants was violated.

The number of rulings regarding violation of freedom of expression also increased from its former level of 16 in 2017 to 40 in 2018. (EÖ/AS/SD)