AKTAŞ v. TURKEY
Inadmissible
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Julia Laffranque;Nebojša Vučinić;Paul Lemmens;Robert Spano;Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström
1. The applicant, Ms Eşe Fatma Aktaş, is a Turkish national who was born in 1966 and lives in Adana. She was represented before the Court by Mr N. Karakaya, a lawyer practising in Istanbul. 2. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent. 3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 4. On 4 September 2011, at approximately 11.15 a.m., the motorcycle driven by the applicant’s son-in-law collided with a pickup truck on a highway. It appears that both the applicant’s son-in-law and her daughter, who was riding at the back of the motorcycle as a passenger, died on the spot. S.D., the driver of the pickup truck, was taken into detention for interrogation upon the orders of the Eskipazar Public Prosecutor. 5. Soon after the incident the Eskipazar Public Prosecutor arrived at the scene of the accident in order to carry out a preliminary examination. It appears from the public prosecutor’s initial incident report that the accident took place on a dual carriageway, where the traffic was flowing in single lanes on one carriageway due to roadworks on the other carriageway at the material time. According to the information that the public prosecutor received from the traffic police, the collision had occurred in the pickup truck’s lane. 6. During his interrogation by the gendarmerie, S.D. stated that he had been driving at a normal speed in his own lane when he noticed a motorcycle coming towards him at great speed in the same lane. Although he had tried to swerve to the right, the motorcycle had hit his vehicle on the left side. He denied any responsibility for the accident. 7. A detailed accident report was prepared by the traffic police on the same day, in which it was stated that no alcohol had been found in S.D.’s blood. The report also stated that the motorcycle driver, who had strayed into the opposite lane, had been entirely responsible for the accident. The traffic police also prepared a sketch map of the scene. 8. According to the crime scene report prepared by the gendarmerie the next day, the post-impact skid marks of the pickup truck were found to be 25.40 metres long, and the scratch marks left by the motorcycle on the road suggested that the collision had occurred in the pickup truck’s lane. According to the same report, the accident had not been caused by adverse weather conditions or any physical defects of the road. The report was accompanied by a sketch map of the accident scene. 9. On 5 September 2011 S.D. was brought before the Eskipazar Public Prosecutor and the Eskipazar Magistrates’ Court, respectively, for questioning. He repeated the statements he had previously made to the gendarmerie. On the same day, the Eskipazar public prosecutor’s office requested S.D.’s arrest on suspicion of causing death through negligence. However, the Eskipazar Magistrates’ Court rejected that request and ordered S.D.’s release from detention. 10. On 14 November 2011 the applicant requested the collection of certain evidence by the Eskipazar public prosecutor’s office, including any CCTV footage from the accident scene, the suspect’s traffic record, a technical examination of the pickup truck (the brake mechanism in particular), and a medical report on the suspect’s eyesight. The applicant also requested the calculation, by an expert, of the approximate speed of the pickup truck at the time of the accident on the basis of the skid marks it had left on the road. 11. On 25 November 2011 the Eskipazar public prosecutor’s office ordered the examination of the suspect’s traffic records and any available CCTV footage in accordance with the applicant’s request. It appears that no action was taken as regards the remaining requests. 12. On 1 December 2011 the Eskipazar Provincial Gendarmerie Command informed the public prosecutor’s office that there were no CCTV cameras in the vicinity of the accident scene, and that S.D. had not been involved in any traffic accidents previously. 13. On 12 December 2011 the applicant was invited to the Gültepe police station in Istanbul to make a statement. She complained that the Eskipazar public prosecutor’s office was not conducting the investigation in an effective manner. Once again, she requested the collection of all the evidence referred to in paragraph 10 above, as well as an examination of the suspect’s phone records to determine whether he had been talking on the phone around the time of the accident. She also asked to be provided with any expert reports submitted to the investigation file. 14. On 30 December 2011 the Eskipazar public prosecutor conducted an on-site examination of the accident scene with the participation of a traffic expert (a traffic police officer). 15. In his report dated 10 January 2012 (“the first expert report”) the traffic expert stated that the absence of any pre-impact skid marks suggested that neither of the drivers had had the opportunity to react in a timely manner (such as by applying the brakes or swerving to the side) to prevent the accident, which had increased the impact of the collision. He found that the motorcycle, which had strayed into the lane occupied by oncoming traffic, had been entirely responsible for the accident. The traffic expert’s report was not provided to the applicant. 16. The Eskipazar public prosecutor’s office subsequently ordered another expert report from the Forensic Medicine Institute, which conducted an examination on the basis of the material in the investigation file. In its report dated 13 February 2002 (“the second expert report”), the Forensic Medicine Institute repeated the findings of the traffic expert. It appears that that report was not sent to the applicant either. 17. Based on all the information and evidence collected, on 28 February 2012 the Eskipazar public prosecutor’s office delivered a decision not to prosecute S.D., who had not been found to be at fault in the incident. 18. The applicant objected to that decision, claiming in particular that she had not been sent the expert reports submitted to the investigation file, which had prevented her from challenging them, and that the public prosecutor had not collected all the evidence relevant to the incident. She also challenged the competence of the police officer who had prepared the first expert report, and claimed that the subsequent report by the Forensic Medicine Institute had merely repeated the findings of that first inadequate report. 19. On 21 June 2012 the Bartın Assize Court dismissed the applicant’s objection. That decision was served on the applicant on 31 July 2012.