The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 2 July 2013 as a Chamber composed of: Guido Raimondi, President, Danutė Jočienė, Peer Lorenzen, András Sajó, Işıl Karakaş, Nebojša Vučinić, Helen Keller, judges, and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar, Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS A. The circumstances of the case The applicants were issued with traffic fines for violating various provisions of the Traffic Code (Law no. 2918). They all brought proceedings before the Criminal Magistrates’ Courts, objecting to these 2 EKSERT TURİZM TAŞIMACILIK TEKSTİL GIDA SAN. VE TİC. LTD. ŞTİ. v. TURKEY AND 7 OTHER APPLICATIONS DECISION fines. In each case, the courts evaluated and rejected their objections without holding a...
SECOND SECTION DECISION Application no. 40988/06 EKSERT TURİZM TAŞIMACILIK TEKSTİL GIDA SAN. VE TİC. LTD. ŞTİ. against Turkey and 7 other applications (see list appended) The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 2 July 2013 as a Chamber composed of: Guido Raimondi, President, Danutė Jočienė, Peer Lorenzen, András Sajó, Işıl Karakaş, Nebojša Vučinić, Helen Keller, judges, and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar, Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS A. The circumstances of the case The applicants were issued with traffic fines for violating various provisions of the Traffic Code (Law no. 2918). They all brought proceedings before the Criminal Magistrates’ Courts, objecting to these
2 EKSERT TURİZM TAŞIMACILIK TEKSTİL GIDA SAN. VE TİC. LTD. ŞTİ. v. TURKEY AND 7 OTHER APPLICATIONS DECISION fines. In each case, the courts evaluated and rejected their objections without holding a hearing. All applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention of their inability to submit their arguments before the domestic courts during the proceedings concerning their objections to the traffic fines. Details of the facts and criminal proceedings and the applicants’ further complaints are indicated in the table attached. B. Relevant domestic law and practice 1. Traffic Code (Law no. 2918) The relevant section of the Traffic Code reads: Section 112 “Proceedings concerning the offences set forth by this Code, except for offences which require temporary annulment of a driving licence, will be conducted by traffic courts and where these are not available by criminal magistrates’ courts.” 2. Misdemeanours Act (Law no. 5326) The relevant sections of the Misdemeanours Act read: Section 27 “Objections to administrative sanctions or fines shall be brought before criminal magistrates’ courts.” Section 28 “... (4) The court shall notify the claimant of the defendant’s pleas. The court may hear the parties on a set day and [at a set] time, either at the parties’ request or on its own motion. There shall be at least one week between the notification and the hearing day. Both of the parties or their representatives shall be present during the hearing. The decision may be rendered in the parties’ absence if they are not present without legitimate reason. This shall be clearly specified in the notification letter. (7) After having evaluated all the evidence in its possession and having heard the submissions of both parties, the court shall give the party against whom the fine or sanction was issued [the opportunity] to make a final statement. The court shall render its final decision in the presence of both parties. (8) The court shall, a. reject the objection if it finds the fine or sanction to be lawful;
EKSERT TURİZM TAŞIMACILIK TEKSTİL GIDA SAN. VE TİC. LTD. ŞTİ. v. TURKE...