Adil Yargılanma Hakkı Kapsamında Makul Sürede Yargılanma Hakkı: Galea ve Pavia v. Malta Davası Işığında Bir Değerlendirme

The right to a fair trial, which is one of the fundamental principles of the rule of law in democratic societies, is regulated in three paragraphs in Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). One of the most important rights within the scope of the right to a fair trial is the right to trial within reasonable time. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) remarked that, this right imposes to the states the duty of holding trials within a reasonable time. The purpose of this duty was stated as protecting the prosecuted persons against excessively lengthy proceedings, and preventing the accused ones in criminal proceedings from having anxiousness caused by the concerns about how their cases will conclude. Also, the right to an effective remedy, which is regulated under Article 13 of the ECHR, is in conjunction …

The main aim of our study is to interpret and discuss the right to trial within reasonable time in the framework of a case example, namely, the case of Galea and Pavia v. Malta (11 February 2020, Application Nos: 77209/16 and 77225/16) which was taken to the ECtHR. In the case mentioned, the applicants alleged that there has been a violation of the right to trial within reasonable time due to the length of time of the criminal proceedings and constitutional redress proceedings, which are claimed to last thirty-three years in total. In conjunction with this, there has also been a violation of the right to an effective remedy with regard to the length of proceedings. In its judgment on 11 February 2020, the Court stated that there have been violations of Article 6 § 1 of the ECHR in relation to the criminal proceedings and to the constitutional redress proceedings, and Article 13 in conjunction with Article 6 § 1 of the ECHR.…

The ECtHR has many examples of judgments which state whether the right to trial within reasonable time has been violated or not. In this study, some ECtHR judgments concluding that there has been a violation or not regarding the right mentioned before are given as examples.…

As for the Turkish Law, human rights are regarded as one of the basic characteristics of the Republic of Turkey in the Turkish Constitution, which defines the Republic of Turkey as a state “respecting the human rights”. Also, ECHR has become legally binding in domestic law, and at the same time the international agreements, which are duly put into effect, are considered among the primary sources of the Turkish Criminal Law.…

In our country, problems related to human rights violations are tried to be solved primarily through individual applications. In this regard, an exception has been made to the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies in terms of the right to trial within reasonable time within the framework of Article 36 of the Turkish Constitution.…