ECHR won’t accept any case from Turkey until September

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has announced that it will not accept any case from Turkey in connection to long detention periods until September because Ankara is currently drafting formulas to address the issue.

“The ECHR has decided to adjourn examination of such applications not yet communicated to the Turkish government and those lodged between now and Sept. 22, 2012,” the Strasbourg-based court said in a written statement, but added that applications that have already been made would continue to be examined by the court under normal procedures.

The ECHR has called on Turkey to establish a special commission to handle cases on the excessive length of judicial proceedings and long detention periods before they are taken to Strasbourg as a means to address the backlog of cases.

“The court held, with regard to the applications pending before it and those lodged between now and Sept 22, 2012, that Turkey had to put in place … an effective remedy affording adequate and sufficient redress in cases where judicial proceedings exceeded a reasonable time,” the court said, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Turkey, which ranks after Russia in the number of cases taken to the ECHR, has been trying to reduce the number of cases at the court after they climbed up to nearly 3,000 complaints – many of which were lodged in relation to long detention periods. The Turkish Justice Ministry and the ECHR negotiated on the matter recently and agreed to set up a special mechanism for those who want to complain about lengthy proceedings.