KARAKOYUN A OSTATNÍ proti Turecku

SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 44205/04
Nazife KARAKOYUN and others against Turkey
and 2 other applications
(see list appended)

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 17 October 2017 as a Committee composed of:

Julia Laffranque, President,
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro,
Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, judges,

and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on the various dates indicated in the appended table,

Having regard to the formal declarations accepting a friendly settlement of the cases,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. The applicants are Turkish nationals. They were all represented by Mr C. Batmanlı, a lawyer practicing in Diyarbakır.

The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent.

The applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the length of civil proceedings and the infringement of their right of access to a court. They further complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention, that the domestic courts’ decisions to apply the statutory rate of default interest to the sum they had been owed instead of the maximum rate applicable to formal expropriation procedures, as defined in Article 46 of the Constitution, had led to reduction in the amounts of compensation for de facto expropriation of their plots of land.

The applicants’ complaints were communicated to the Government.

On 5 September 2016 and 17 April 2017 the Court received friendly settlement declarations signed by the parties under which the applicants agreed to waive any further claims against Turkey in respect of the facts giving rise to these applications against an undertaking by the Government to pay them the amounts detailed in the appended table. These amounts will be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable on the date of payment, and will be free of any taxes that may be applicable. It will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertook to pay simple interest on it, from the expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points.

The payment will constitute the final resolution of the cases.

THE LAW

Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single decision.

The Court takes note of the friendly settlements reached between the parties. It is satisfied that the settlements are based on respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols and finds no reasons to justify a continued examination of the applications. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the cases out of the list.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to join the applications;

Decides to strike the applications out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 39 of the Convention.

Done in English and notified in writing on 16 November 2017.

Hasan Bakırcı Nebojša Vučinić
Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX