8.  The applicants were born in 1926, 1923, 1924, 1930, 1935, 1912 and 1957 respectively. They live in Istanbul and Ankara. 9.  According to information in the case file, a plot of land measuring 45,000 sq. m (45 dönüm)[1] in the village of Kefken, Kandıra, close to the forest and the Black Sea, was registered in the land register (plot no. 135) in August 1911 in the name of Tevfik Beyzade Hurşit Bey, an ascendant of the applicants. 10.  On 9 July 1960 a plot of land measuring 102 500 sq. m, in the village of Kefken, Kandıra, close to the forest and the Black Sea, was registered in the land register (plot no. 135) by the cadastral commission[2] in the names of Tasfire Güneş, Reşat Güneş, Saffet Güneş and Turan Güneş, the heirs of Tevfik Beyzade Hurşit Bey. Following the death of Reşat Güneş in 1977, of Tasfire Güneş in 1978 and of Turan Güneş in 1982, the respective shares were transferred to their successors and registered in the land register: Nihal Ayser Turgut, Tevfik Güneş and Turgay Güneş are the heirs of Reşat Güneş; Nermin Solmaz Güneş and Ayşe Ayata are the heirs of Turan Güneş. Hurşit Güneş had inherited shares from Turan Güneş and Tasfire Güneş as the son of the former and husband of the latter. 11.  On 3 January 1962 the Ministry of Forestry brought proceedings before the Kandıra Cadastral Court (“the court”) to have the cadastral commission’s assessment of the applicants’ title to the land[3] declared void on the ground that the land was part of the public forest estate. 12.  On 5 January 1962 the Treasury in turn brought proceedings of the same kind[4] before the court and sought registration of the land as property belonging to the Treasury. 13.  On 23 May 1965 the court declined jurisdiction under section 28 of the Land Registry Act (Law no. 509) and referred the matter to the Land Registry Directorate (“the Directorate”). On an unspecified date in 1966 the Directorate referred the matter back to the court. 14.  In 1966, by judgment no. 1966/11-1967/66, the court allowed the Ministry of Forestry’s application. In the reasons for its judgment, it considered essentially that the disputed land was part of the public forest estate and that therefore, pursuant to the relevant provisions of the Turkish Constitution, it could not be privately owned. 15.  By a judgment of 18 June 1968 the Court of Cassation partly upheld the first-instance court’s judgment in respect of Turan Güneş and Reşat Güneş and remitted the remainder of the case to the same court. 16.  At a hearing before the court, Turan Güneş stated that he had, in the meantime, filed an application with the Administrative Court for the delimitation of the land at issue to be set aside and accordingly asked the court to stay proceedings in the pending case until the Administrative Court had delivered a decision on the matter.
The Administrative Court subsequently dismissed the application to have the matter set aside. On 29 December 1969 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the decision of the administrative court and on 12 January 1974 dismissed an application for rectification lodged by Turan Güneş. The judgment became final. 17.  By a judgment of 29 June 1972, considering that the land at issue was part of the public forest estate, the court decided that it could not be privately owned and declared the title deed void. 18.  On 4 July 1974 the Court of Cassation quashed the first-instance judgment, holding as follows:
“Following the amendment of section 1 of Law no. 6831 [the Forestry Act] by Law no. 1744, jurisdiction for dealing with issues concerning the classification of land as forest was assigned to the ordinary courts and [such measures] ceased to be administrative in nature. Having regard to its procedural nature, this provision is applicable to earlier events. Consequently, although the decision of the Ministry of Forestry was upheld by the Supreme Administrative Court, since jurisdiction in this respect has been transferred from the administrative to the ordinary courts, the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court can no longer be applied. Furthermore, [in the instant case], the applicants relied upon the land register. This must be consulted and applied to the land at issue. In addition, since the judgment of the Court of Cassation is to be regarded as favourable to the heirs of Hurşit because they were joint owners under the ordinary regime of ownership in common, the land must be registered in the name of the defendants if it is established that it is not forest land, within the meaning of section 1 of Law no. 6831, as amended by Law no. 1744. Otherwise, since cadastral registration of State forests can only be carried out by special commissions set up for that purpose, in accordance with section 7 of Law no. 6831, and seeing that it is only possible to mark out the boundaries between State forests and private forests, it must be established whether the land at issue was returned or if it falls within the scope of restitution pursuant to Law no. 5658, after having been nationalised pursuant to Law no. 4785; in the latter case, it must be listed as private forest; otherwise, it must be classified as State forest and be excluded from cadastral registration [in the name of a private individual].” 19.  On 10 November 1977, relying on the expert reports that had been prepared at its request, the court ordered the land at issue to be entered in the land register in the names of Tasfire, Saffet, Turan and Reşat Güneş. 20.  On 28 March 1978, on an appeal by the Ministry of Forestry, the Court of Cassation overturned the court’s judgment. It held that the expert reports were inadequate and that the court should first of all seek the detailed opinion of the Ministry as to whether or not the land at issue was part of the public forest estate and, if required, commission fresh expert reports on the matter. 21.  Various surveys ordered by the court on 23 July 1997 and 20 April 2001, based notably on aerial photographs taken in 1959, concluded that the land in question was part of the public forest estate. These surveys were supported by further expert reports dated 21 August 1997 and 28 April 2001. 22.  On 8 May 2001 the court ruled that the land at issue was part of the public forest estate; it declared void the cadastral commission’s assessment of[5] the applicants’ title deeds to the land and ordered it to be entered in the land register as belonging to the Treasury. In doing so, it relied on the aforementioned expert reports, the settled case-law of the plenary Court of Cassation – to the effect that title deeds to property forming part of the public forest estate had no legal value – and on the provisions of Article 169 § 2 of the Constitution enshrining the principle of the inalienability of ownership of State forests. As regards the buildings on the land, the court declined jurisdiction ratione materiae in so far as they had been erected after the title to the land deeds had been issued.
As regards the status of the applicants and/or their ascendants as parties to the proceedings, the court found, firstly, that the judgment had become final in respect of Turan and Hurşit Güneş since on 18 June 1968 the Court of Cassation had upheld the first-instance judgment concerning them and secondly, that the heirs of Turan and Hurşit Güneş had been allowed to join the proceedings following the death of their ascendants. 23.  On 18 November 2001 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment of the first-instance court. 24.  By a judgment of 29 April 2002, served on the applicants on 11 June 2002, the Court of Cassation dismissed an application by them for rectification of the judgment. 25.  Following the Court of Cassation’s judgment of 28 March 1978, the office of the chairman of the Forestry Cadastral Commission (Orman Kadastro Komisyon Başkanlığı) informed the Cadastral Court on 28 March 1978 that part of the disputed land had been delimited as part of the Gökdağ State forest and that the other part of the land was subject to the application of section 2(B) of the Forestry Act (Law no. 6831) and was consequently excluded from the public forest estate and transferred to the Treasury. 26.  On an unspecified date Turan Güneş lodged an application for judicial review with the District Court, which registered the case as no. 1989/90. Turan Güneş challenged the application of the aforementioned section 2(B) to the land in question. 27.  On 12 April 1988 the heirs of R. Gödek applied to the court to be allowed to join the proceedings as intervening parties on the ground that they held a document of title over part of the land at issue to which section 2(B) of Law no. 6831 had been applied. On 24 August 1988 the court allowed their application. 28.  By a judgment of 11 July 1990 the aforementioned case no. 1989/90 was joined to the main proceedings pending before the court. 29.  On 5 June 1991, claiming title to the land at issue, Z.A.K. also applied to the court for leave to join the proceedings as an intervening party; the court allowed the application on 2 December 1992. Following the death of Z.A.K. during the course of the proceedings, his successors pursued the case before the court. 30.  In a judgment of 8 May 2001 the court dismissed the applicants’ application in the joined case no. 1989/90 and the applications by the other civil parties concerning delimitation, after having decided to declare the applicants’ document of title void on the ground that the land at issue was part of the public forest estate. 31.  On 3 September 2003 the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry requested the İzmit Forestry Directorate to mark the disputed area of 102,500 sq. m[6] as “forest” on the relevant maps pursuant to the judgment handed down in the matter, and to annul the decision of the cadastral commission, of which public notice had been given on 30 May 2003, excluding that land from the perimeter of the forest estate pursuant to section 2(B) of Law no. 6831. 32.  On 27 October 1967, through a notary, Tasfire, Reşat, Saffet and Turan Güneş requested a private company to cease occupying and refrain from building on the land at issue. 33.  On 17 May 1990 the office of the Chief of General Staff (Genelkurmay Baskanlığı) decided to transform the site of the Kefken military post into a military security zone. 34.  On an unspecified date Hurşit Güneş lodged a complaint with the Kandıra public prosecutor against individuals who, he alleged, had sold various plots of the disputed land to third parties while the proceedings concerning the land were pending before the Cadastral Court. He also applied for the existing buildings on the land to be demolished. 35.  On 15 February 1996 the public prosecutor decided to take no further action on the ground that the land was inside the area delimited as forest land and that the criminal court of first instance had delivered judgments concerning the occupants in 1994, further to complaints by the forestry authorities. On 18 April 1996 the Sakarya Assize Court dismissed an objection by Hurşit Güneş. 36.  On 7 March 1996 an expert report was issued by two experts at the request of the Kandıra district governor’s office. The report noted the presence of approximately fifty private housing units and a military holiday camp belonging to the Ministry of Defence, comprising, inter alia, several houses, a tennis court, a picnic area, a kitchen and various storerooms, built between 1970 and 1995. The report was forwarded to Hurşit Güneş on 22 March 1996. 37.  On 10 December 1997, in an additional report, the three experts noted that part of the disputed land, measuring 28,875 sq. m, had ceased to have certain characteristics of forest land prior to 31 December 1981, since it had first been used as agricultural land and had subsequently been used as residential land on which fifty-two reinforced concrete buildings of various kinds had been built. 38.  On 18 May 1998 an agricultural engineer noted in a report submitted to the Cadastral Court that the land at issue could not be considered forest land and that it had features of third-class dry agricultural land but was used as building land (arsa). 39.  On 9 June 1998 the technical expert added his report to the case file. A sketch of the relevant land showed the presence of the buildings and the military zone. 40.  On 17 September 2002 approximately forty occupants/residents of the disputed land filed a petition with the Ministry of Forestry. They asked that the land at issue, on which there were, according to them, some one hundred and fifty individual dwellings, be excluded from the forest estate and registered as belonging to the Treasury. They expressed their desire to purchase the parts of the land corresponding to their housing plots.