The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 15 October 2013 as a Committee composed of: Peer Lorenzen, President, András Sajó, Nebojša Vučinić, judges, and Seçkin Erel, Acting Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 19 July 2006, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS The applicant, Mr İbrahim Dursun, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1965 and lives in Antalya. He was represented before the Court by Mr M. Yıldız and Mr A. Sevim, lawyers practising in Batman. The circumstances of the case The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows. In 1989 the applicant applied to the Municipality of Batman (“the Municipality”) to obtain a licence to transport passengers on a pre-determined itinerary via a minibus. On 3 November 1989 the licence was granted. The applicant operated the...
SECOND SECTION DECISION Application no. 31037/06 İbrahim DURSUN against Turkey The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 15 October 2013 as a Committee composed of: Peer Lorenzen, President, András Sajó, Nebojša Vučinić, judges, and Seçkin Erel, Acting Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 19 July 2006, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS The applicant, Mr İbrahim Dursun, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1965 and lives in Antalya. He was represented before the Court by Mr M. Yıldız and Mr A. Sevim, lawyers practising in Batman. The circumstances of the case The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows. In 1989 the applicant applied to the Municipality of Batman (“the Municipality”) to obtain a licence to transport passengers on a pre-determined itinerary via a minibus. On 3 November 1989 the licence was granted. The applicant operated the minibus until 1991, at which time he left Batman due to the increasingly precarious security situation in the city caused by wide-spread terrorist activities. When leaving the city, the applicant did not cede his transportation licence, nor did he notify the
2 DURSUN v. TURKEY DECISION municipal authorities that he would no longer be running the minibus service, which he was obliged to do by law. Following the amelioration of the security situation in Batman, in 1999 the applicant returned to the city and on 27 July 1999 he requested the renewal of his transportation licence from the Municipality. On 21 June 2000 the Directorate of Traffic at the Municipality, which was in charge of processing the licence applications, sought advice from the legal department as to the applicant’s request. They indicated, inter alia, that according to their records, the applicant had been granted a licence in 1989, but there had been no request to renew it after 1991. Although this conduct normally required the revocation of the licence, no such decision had been taken by the Municipality. They inquired as to whether the licence in question could be renewed in these circumstances. This request was repeated on 3 November 2000. On 7 December 2000 the legal department replied that according to Section 10 of the Regulation issued by the Provincial Traffic Commission (İl Trafik Komisyonu), minibus owners who ceased their licensed transport operations were under an obligation to notify the Municipality of their reasons within three days. Failure to make such notification would be subjected to the penalties set out Section 13, which included a monetary sanction and the eventual annulment of the licence in the event of recurrence of this breach within a one-year period. The legal department opined that since none of these steps had been taken by the Municipality at the relevant time, it would no longer be possible to enforce the sanctions envisaged in Section 13 against the applicant. The M...