In an interim resolution adopted on Wednesday 2 February, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe referred the case “Kavala v. Turkey” to the European Court of Human Rights to determine whether the judgment in that case had in fact not been implemented.
Announced in December 2019, it called for Osman Kavala’s immediate release, as his detention had been decided in the absence of sufficient evidence against him and was only intended to silence him while intimidating other human rights defenders. The judgment became final in May 2020.
A first interim resolution adopted in December 2020 informed Turkey of the Committee of Ministers’ intention to initiate an “action for failure to fulfil obligations”, which was recorded in Wednesday’s resolution.
This infringement procedure is “a tool rarely used by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe “ [only once to date, in 2019 in Mammadov v. Azerbaijan ], the European External Action Service (EEAS) said in a statement by its spokesman, Peter Stano, published on Thursday 3 February.
The Turkish government’s attitude is described as a “worrying precedent”, which “further increases the EU’s concerns regarding Turkish judiciary’s adherence to international and European standards”.
Link to the interim resolution: https://bit.ly/3uoEJWM (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)