Council of Europe ministers serve formal notice on Turkey in Kavala case

Mr Kavala has been in jail in Turkey since November 2017, having been arrested, acquitted and re-arrested a number of times.

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has formally notified Turkey of its intention to refer Kavala v Turkey to the ECtHR asking whether the country has failed to fulfil its obligation to implement the court’s judgment in this case.

In December 2019, the European Court ruled that Mr Kavala’s detention took place in the absence of sufficient evidence that he had committed an offence. It found that his arrest and pre-trial detention pursued an ulterior purpose, namely to silence him and dissuade other human rights defenders, and that the time taken by the Turkish Constitutional Court to review his complaint was insufficiently “speedy”.

The European Court concluded that the Turkish government was to take every measure to put an end to the applicant’s detention and to secure his immediate release. The court’s judgment became final in May 2020, at which point the case passed to the Committee of Ministers to supervise the execution of the judgment.

In an interim resolution adopted yesterday, the committee recalled its eight previous decisions, and one previous interim resolution, strongly urging the Turkish authorities to, on the one hand, ensure the applicant’s immediate release and, on the other, to ensure the conclusion of the criminal proceedings against him on the basis of the European Court’s findings and without delay.

By failing to ensure the applicant’s immediate release, the committee considers that Turkey is refusing to abide by the court’s final judgment in this case.

The committee therefore notified Turkey of its intention to refer the issue to the court at its meeting on 2 February 2022, asking Turkey to submit its view by 19 January at the latest.

Under Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Council of Europe member states are obliged to implement judgments from the European Court of Human Rights.

Article 46.4 of the Convention gives the Committee of Ministers, which is responsible for supervising the execution of the court’s judgments, the possibility of referring to the Court the question of whether a state has failed to fulfil its obligation to implement a judgment.