Çakici v. Turkey
Key Judgment
Legal Relevance
Keywords: Deprivation of Liberty | Evidence | Judicial Protection | Relatives as Victims
Themes: Related Crimes
The Court found that whether the failure on the part of the authorities to provide a plausible explanation as to a detainee's fate, in the absence of a body, might engage the state's obligation under Article 2 will depend on all the circumstances of the case, and in particular on the existence of sufficient circumstantial evidence, based on concrete elements, from which it may be concluded to the requisite standard of proof that the detainee must be presumed to have died in custody. It also found that there was no general principle that a family member of a "disappeared person" is thereby a victim of treatment contrary to Article 3. Instead, it noted that the assessment of whether a family member is such a victim will depend on the "existence of special factors which gives the suffering of the applicant a dimension and character distinct from the emotional distress which may be regarded as inevitably caused to relatives of a victim of a serious human rights violation".
Judgment Date
July 8, 1999
Country
Turkey
Judicial Body
European Court of Human Rights
Articles violated
Article 2 (substantive) [ECHR], Article 2 (procedural) [ECHR], Article 3 [ECHR], Article 5 [ECHR], Article 13 [ECHR]
Articles not violated / not dealt with
Article 18 [ECHR], Article 34 [ECHR]
Facts of the Case
Mr. Ahmet Çakıcı was disappared in 1993 following arrest during an operation carried out by Turkish gendarmes and village guards in South-Eastern Turkey. Eye-witness testimony showed that he was tortured while in state detention. In May 1996, the authorities informed the victim's family that Mr. Çakıcı had been killed in a clash between state forces and the PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan) and his body had been found dead among forty-five other militants though no forensic analysis had ever taken place.