An appeal on the legality of the temporary detention of a Turkish magistrate, following the attempted coup on 15 July was rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday 17 November. The reasons for this rejection state that Zeynep Mercan had not exhausted all the different domestic channels of appeal.
Mercan was a judge in the city of Giresun in north-eastern Turkey. She was arrested on 18 July and put on remand that day. Her opposition to this decision was rejected by the Court of Assizes in Ordu on 8 August and on 2 September she submitted an appeal to the ECHR on the basis of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to freedom and safety) and Article 6 (right to a fair trial).
In her appeal, Mercan asserted that she had addressed the ECHR because the Turkish Constitutional Court would not be able to make an impartial decision. Two of its members, as well as the reporters themselves, were arrested and placed on remand, she pointed out, also indicating that the measures taken by the decree law as part of the state of emergency could not be the subject of an appeal.
The chamber of seven judges that examined the case and rejected it in its current stage of proceedings drew on the jurisprudence of the ECHR and stated that the fears felt by Mercan regarding the impartiality of the judges at the Constitutional Court did not dispense her of the obligation to begin an appeal to this jurisdiction, in order to comply with the requirements contained in Article 35 Paragraph 1 of the Convention (exhausting all the different possibilities contained in an internal appeal and submitting it within a six month deadline following the final decision).
This decision is the first of its kind to be made following the attempted coup in Turkey on 15 July. So far, around 3,000 appeals linked to the state of emergency and the purges executed by the regime have been registered by the ECHR but this registration does not in any way prejudge their admissibility. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)