“Slap” decision by the ECHR: Condemning Turkey for “omissions” in the investigation into the death of Birkin Elvan

New “slap” decision in Turkey. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of the Council of Europe yesterday condemned the neighbor for the “omissions” in the investigations into the death of the fifteen-year-old Birkin Elvan almost ten years ago, which had escalated the uprising against the government of then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the decision announced in Strasbourg, it is pointed out that the Turkish authorities did not do what they should have done to effectively investigate the role of officials in the case and did not demonstrate independence.

Berkin Elvan was hit in the head by a police tear gas canister as he went out to buy bread, in the middle of a police intervention in his neighborhood to quell the mobilization against the then prime minister and current president.

His death, on March 11, 2014, after remaining in a coma for 269 days, sparked mass protests in all major cities of Turkey, bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the streets.

The investigation into the case led to the conviction of a police officer for premeditated murder. The child’s parents, who believed that the police officer should be convicted of murder, have appealed; this process is still ongoing.

At the same time, in 2013 the child’s father, Sami Elvan, filed a lawsuit against the then prime minister Erdoğan, the then interior minister, the then Istanbul security director and the prefect of Istanbul, accusing them of orchestrating the violence against the Gezi Park protesters and so they were accomplices in the murder of his child.

The prosecution filed without further ado the lawsuit against the prime minister and the interior minister. For the security director and the prefect, the authorities decided in 2014 not to initiate disciplinary proceedings and to put the case on file. The victim’s family then submitted a petition to parliament accusing public officials of obstructing justice.

After the decision of the Istanbul prosecutor’s office in December 2014 to close the case, the parents reached the Constitutional Court, which rejected the appeal in 2019, on the grounds that it did not contain proof of what they were complaining about.

The ECtHR, in its own decision, countered that it was not up to the applicants to provide evidence. It concluded that there had been procedural “omissions” which meant the Turkish state “violated Article 2 of the Convention”, under which it was obliged to conduct an effective investigation into the role of Turkish officials in the teenager’s death.

The applicants had not sought compensation, and the European court did not impose a monetary penalty on Turkey.

The ECtHR is the judicial arm of the Council of Europe. These are institutions independent of the EU, responsible for the protection of human rights in their 46 member states, which includes Turkey.

RES-EMP

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