Kavala v Türkiye (third party intervention)
Turkish human rights defender Osman Kavala alleges before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that his continued detention – in defiance of two ECtHR judgments finding his detention to be arbitrary and politically motivated and ordering his immediate release – violated his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
CASE BACKGROUND
Osman Kavala is a Turkish businessman, civil society activist and human rights defender. Criminal proceedings were brought against him in Türkiye in relation to his alleged involvement in the mass protests in 2013 (known as the Gezi events) and the attempted coup of 15 July 2016. As a result of these criminal proceedings, Mr Kavala has been detained continuously since 18 October 2017.
After unsuccessfully challenging these proceedings in the domestic courts, in July 2018 he took his case to the ECtHR. The ECtHR delivered its judgment on 10 December 2019, finding that his detention was arbitrary and politically motivated and ordered his immediate release. The Court decided that Mr Kavala had been detained for exercising his fundamental human rights, and that in prosecuting him, the Turkish authorities’ ulterior motive had been to seek to silence him.
However, despite this judgment, and a later decision of the ECtHR in infringement proceedings in 2022 regarding the failure to implement the ECtHR’s first judgment of 10 December 2019, Mr. Kavala was convicted of attempting to overthrow the Government and was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment.
Mr Kavala therefore made a second application to the ECtHR, concerning violations of the ECHR perpetrated against him since the ECtHR judgment of 10 December 2019. Specifically, Mr Kavala argues that his rights under ECHR Articles 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11 taken together with Article 18 have been violated as a result of the continuing arbitrary and politically motivated deprivation of his liberty which breached the terms of the ECtHR’s 2019 judgment.
INTERVENTION
REDRESS submitted a third-party intervention on 12 September 2024, addressing the question whether there had been a violation of ECHR Article 3.
REDRESS’ intervention examined the interface between torture, ill-treatment and indefinite periods of arbitrary detention, and how the uncertainty surrounding prolonged, arbitrary and unlawful detentions in breach of the two judgments may have a similar effect on a detainee as an irreducible sentence of life imprisonment, or a lengthy period spent on death row or awaiting extradition proceedings.
The intervention also analysed the circumstances in which failure to implement a judgment by the ECtHR – ordering an applicant’s immediate release – may engage the Member State’s obligations to protect the individual from ill-treatment, especially in circumstances where the conditions of the applicant’s continued detention may foreseeably entail violations of ECHR Article 3.
The intervention concluded that:
- Subjecting an individual to indefinite periods of arbitrary detention constitutes ill-treatment, and in severe cases torture, in breach of ECHR Article 3.
- Failure to comply with, and enforce, a judgment ordering the immediate release of an individual who is arbitrarily detained on an indefinite basis breaches States’ corresponding obligations to prevent, protect individuals from, and provide redress for violations of Article 3.
REDRESS filed this intervention as part of our work under United Against Torture Consortium.
The ECtHR’s judgment of 10 December 2019 can be found here and the judgment of the infringement proceedings here.
QUICK FACTS
Case name: Kavala v Türkiye (n° 2) APP. NO. 2170/24
Court/Body: European Court of Human Rights
Date intervention filed: 12 September
Current status: Case Pending