ALEMDAR AND OTHERS v. TURKEY
Inadmissible
Julia Laffranque;Nebojša Vučinić;Paul Lemmens;Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström;Ksenija Turković
1. The applicants, Mr Kemal Alemdar, Mr Şaban Alemdar, Ms Hafize Alemdar, Mr Nihat Alemdar, Mr Cihat Alemdar, Ms Kâniye Alemdar, Mr Cemal Alemdar, Ms Rabia Kahraman (Alemdar), Ms Saliha Gezgin (Alemdar), Ms Hatice Şirin (Alemdar), Ms Melahat Tıknaz, Mr Şakir Tıknaz, Mr Bahattin Tıknaz, Mr Fehmi Tıknaz, Mr Murat Tıknaz, Ms Aysel Örek (Tıknaz), Ms Samiye Özdemir and Ms Saniye Keskin Alemdar, are eighteen Turkish nationals. They were born in 1954, 1953, 1927, 1954, 1959, 1959, 1956, 1943, 1940, 1935, 1946, 1947, 1961, 1930, 1954, 1956, 1964 and 1959 respectively. They were represented before the Court by Ms Gülseren Çanga, a lawyer practising in Sakarya. 2. s, may be summarised as follows. 3. In 1983, Mahmut Alemdar and İsmail Alemdar, the applicants’ predecessors, purchased a plot of land in Sapanca, in the Uzunkum District of Sakarya, which had been registered in the land register as plot no. 9, parcel no. 317. 4. In 1993, the forest administration conducted a cadastral survey. On 9 April 1993, as a consequence of the survey, an annotation was made in the land register indicating that the applicants’ land could not be sold as it was classified as part of the public forest. 5. On 25 April 2001 the applicants instituted proceedings before the Sapanca Civil Court of First Instance seeking the annulment of the outcome of the cadastral survey. 6. On 26 September 2002 the Sapanca Civil Court of First Instance dismissed the applicants’ case, holding that the cadastral survey was in conformity with the law. An appeal and a request for rectification lodged by the applicants were subsequently dismissed by the Court of Cassation and the decision became final on 15 July 2005. The final decision was notified to the applicants on 17 August 2005. 7. Under Article 169 of the Turkish Constitution of 1982, ownership of public forests may not be transferred to others; public forests will be managed and exploited by the State in accordance with the law. Ownership of such forests cannot be acquired through adverse possession, nor may the forests be subject to any easement, unless it is considered to be in the public interest. 8. Under section 7 of Law no. 6831 of 31 August 1956, the cadastral commissions decide whether an area will be categorized as a public forest or a private forest. The same law governs the way in which the cadastral commissions operate (sections 7 to 12). 9. A full description of the relevant domestic law may be found in Turgut and Others v. Turkey (no. 1411/03, §§ 41-67, 8 July 2008) and Köktepe v. Turkey (no. 35785/03, §§ 36-65, 22 July 2008). 10. The object of Law no. 6384 was to provide for the settlement, by means of compensation, of applications lodged with the Court concerning length of judicial proceedings, and non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of judicial decisions. A Compensation Commission was set up for that purpose. A full description of the relevant domestic law may be found in Turgut and Others v. Turkey ((dec.), no. 4860/09, §§ 19-26, 26 March 2013). 11. The competence ratione materiae of the Compensation Commission was subsequently extended by a decree which came into force on 16 March 2014. The decree extended the competence of the Compensation Commission to the examination of other complaints, such as alleged restriction of the right of detainees to correspondence in a language other than Turkish and the prison authorities’ refusal, on different grounds, to hand over periodicals. A full description of the relevant domestic law may be found in Yıldız and Yanak v. Turkey ((dec.), no. 44013/07, §§ 9-17, 27 May 2014). 12. The Turkish Council of Ministers issued a decree which came into force on 9 March 2016. The decree extended anew the competence ratione materiae of the Compensation Commission. 13. The Compensation Commission is now entitled to examine the following subjects under Article 4 of the decree, which reads as follows: “a) Applications concerning an alleged violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions on account of the annulment of an applicant’s title deeds because his or her land was classified as part of the public forest area, or as a result of the application of section 2/B of Law no. 6831, or because the land was classified as part of the public forest area in cadastral surveys; b) Applications concerning an alleged violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions on account of the annulment of an applicant’s title deeds because the impugned land was classified as located within a coastal area; c) Applications concerning an alleged violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions on account of the allocation of the impugned land for public use in local land development plans; d) Applications concerning an alleged breach of an applicant’s right to private and family life on account of the respective disciplinary sanctions imposed on detainees and convicted persons by the prison authorities; e) Applications concerning an alleged breach of the right to respect for correspondence on account of the prison administration’s refusal to receive or send letters or similar correspondence drafted in Turkish.”