CİDDİ v. TURKEY
Inadmissible
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Ledi Bianku;Nebojša Vučinić;Paul Lemmens;Robert Spano;Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström
1. A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. 3. On 3 October 2001 the applicants’ father was hit by a car while he was crossing a street. On the same date, he succumbed to his injuries and died. 4. Criminal proceedings were brought against M.S.A., who had hit the applicants’ father while driving his company car, for causing death by negligence. 5. According to an expert report dated 25 April 2002 prepared by a university professor who was a former traffic expert at the Forensic Medicine Institute (Adli Tıp Kurumu Trafik İhtisas Dairesi), the driver had been 37.5% responsible for the accident, and the remaining responsibility lay with the applicants’ father, who had been hit when crossing the street while the pedestrian “don’t walk” red light was showing. 6. In a report subsequently prepared by the traffic branch of the Forensic Medicine Institute on 16 October 2002, the driver was found to have been only 25% responsible for the accident. 7. On 27 December 2002 the Istanbul Criminal Court of First Instance found M.S.A. guilty of causing death by negligence, and imposed a fine on him. 8. Following an appeal by the parties, on 8 June 2005 the Court of Cassation quashed that judgment on procedural grounds and remitted it to the Istanbul Criminal Court of First Instance. 9. On 24 March 2006 the Istanbul Criminal Court of First Instance again sentenced M.S.A. to a fine; that judgment was also quashed by the Court of Cassation on 17 April 2008 on procedural grounds. 10. On 25 May 2009 the Istanbul Criminal Court of First Instance decided to discontinue the proceedings, as the prosecution of the offence in question had become time-barred. On 14 March 2012 the Court of Cassation upheld that judgment. The applicants claim to have learned of that decision on 30 October 2012. 11. On 18 July 2002 the applicants, together with their mother Vasfiye Ciddi, lodged a claim before the Istanbul Civil Court of First Instance for compensation against (i) the driver, M.S.A., (ii) M.S.A.’s employer (that is to say, the company that employed him), which owned the car which M.S.A. had been driving at the time of the accident, and (iii) the latter’s insurance company. They requested a total of 25,000,000,000 Turkish liras (TRL) in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and TRL 25,000,000,000 in respect of pecuniary damage. 12. On 29 May 2003 the Istanbul Civil Court of First Instance decided to suspend the compensation proceedings pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings. 13. An expert report submitted to the Istanbul Civil Court of First Instance on 29 September 2009 found the driver M.S.A. to have been 25% responsible for the accident, in line with the reports submitted to the criminal case file. 14. On 5 October 2010 the Istanbul Civil Court of First Instance accepted the applicants’ claim in part and, having regard to the limited degree of M.S.A.’s responsibility for the accident, awarded them a total of 12,500 Turkish liras (TRY) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and TRY 2,490 in respect of pecuniary damage, plus interest on both amounts running from the date of the accident. 15. On 4 October 2011 the applicants’ mother, Vasfiye Ciddi, died, leaving the three applicants as her sole heirs. 16. On 12 and 17 October 2011 the applicants received TRY 43,000 (approximately 17,160 euros (EUR) at the material time) and TRY 7,523 (approximately EUR 2,950 at the material time), respectively, from the defendants in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, in accordance with the judgment of the Istanbul Civil Court of First Instance. 17. On 15 February 2012 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment of the first-instance court. That decision was served on the applicants on 12 June 2012. 18. On 8 April 2014 the Court decided to declare the applicants’ complaint under Article 6 § 1 concerning the length of the compensation proceedings inadmissible for failure to exhaust the available domestic remedies, in the light of its conclusions in the case of Turgut and Others v. Turkey ((dec.), no. 4860/09, §§ 19-58). 19. Accordingly, the applicants applied to the Compensation Commission established by Law no. 6384 in respect of their complaints concerning the length of the compensation proceedings. 20. On 1 July 2015 the applicants were paid TRY 8,300 (approximately EUR 2,760 at the material time) by the Ministry of Justice in respect of nonpecuniary damage arising from the undue lengthiness of the compensation proceedings.