CASE OF GEDİKLİ v. TURKEY
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Enforcement proceedings;Article 6-1 - Access to court);Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Protection of property (Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Peaceful enjoyment of possessions)
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Julia Laffranque;Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström
5. The applicant was born in 1957 and lives in Kocaeli. 6. Following a dispute with a private third party, the applicant initiated compensation proceedings. 7. On 12 March 2009 the Tuzla Civil Court of General Jurisdiction granted the applicant compensation, amounting to 386,464.75 Turkish liras (TRY) (approximately 174,000 euros (EUR)). In the operative part of the judgment, the court indicated that the defendant party had to pay TRY 16,000 (approximately EUR 7,400) for court fees pursuant to the Law on Charges. The court registry accordingly sent a payment order to the defendant party. However, no payment was made. 8. On 18 May 2009 the applicant submitted a petition to the registry of the first instance court, requesting that the judgment be served on her in order to commence enforcement proceedings. On the same day, the court rejected the request on the ground that it was impossible under Section 28(1) (a) of the Law on Charges (Law no. 492) to serve a copy of the judgment unless the court costs that should have been born by the defendant party had been discharged. 9. At the time when the application was introduced, the applicant had therefore been unable to bring enforcement proceedings in order to have the above-mentioned judgment executed unless she herself was willing to pay the court fees that the defendant party had failed to pay. 10. Following the introduction of the present application with the Court, the domestic legislation was amended (see paragraphs 11-13 below), and subsequently the judgment in question was served on the applicant. In the absence of an appeal, the judgment became final on 17 October 2012. On 5 March 2013 the applicant initiated enforcement proceedings against her debtor. On 10 April 2013 the applicant further requested the enforcement office to place a lien on the debtor’s property. According to the documents in the file, as of 14 April 2017 the debt, which is still not enforced, amounts to TRY 812,648.94 (approximately EUR 193,500) including the initial amount of compensation awarded by the domestic court plus interest running at statutory rate.