Birinci yılında anayasa mahkemesine bireysel başvuru kararlarının analizi

Abstract

ÖZET: Anayasa Mahkemesi bireysel başvurunun birinci yılında 81 karar yayımlamıştır. Aşağıdaki değerlendirme yazısında usul konularından çok kararların maddi içeriğine ilişkin analiz yapılmaya çalışılmıştır. Kararlara bakıldığında genel olarak AYM’nin İnsan Hakları Avrupa Sözleşmesi ve İnsan Hakları Avrupa Mahkemesi kararlarıyla uyumlu bir içtihat oluşturma gayreti görülebilmektedir. Bununla birlikte, bazı önemli eleştirilecek yanlara aşağıdaki incelemede yer verilmiştir. Özellikle, şu konular eleştiri noktası olarak daha fazla öne çıkmaktadır: İHAM kararlarının zaman zaman anayasal hak ve özgürlükleri iç hukuka kıyasla daha dar yorumlamak amaçlı kullanılması; bazı davalarda İHAM kararlarındaki ölçütlerin ruhuna aykırı bir biçimde uygulanması; AYM’nin özerk yorum yetkisinin başvurucu lehine yorumlanma olanağının zaman zaman ihmal edilmesi; AYM’nin derece mahkemelerinin yorum yetkisine müdahale etmeme kaygısının adil yargılanma hakkına ilişkin davalarda olumsuz sonuçlar doğurma potansiyeli taşıması.ABSTRACT: The Constitutional Court of Turkey in its first year of individual application (constitutional complaint) published 81 judgments. My main conclusions on the cases won’t be on the application procedure, but rather will be on the content of the judgments. When we look at the judgments, in general, it can be said that the Constitutional Court (CCrt) has a deep concern about harmonizing its cases with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECrtHR). The number of references to the ECrtHR judgments is very high in the judgments of the CCrt. Nonetheless the main points of criticism can be listed as follows: (a) The Law on the Establishment and Trial Procedure of the Constitutional Court (No. 6216) imposed a ban for the direct individual application against parliamentary acts and administrative regulatory acts (art 45/3). This ban was interpreted broadly in the Ahmet Soysal case. Therefore the provision mentioned can cause trouble in view of the potential victim approach of the ECrtHR. (b) According to the Turkish Constitution (art 148/3) the rights and freedoms that can be subject to individual application before the CCrt are limited to the rights and freedoms in the ECHR. By interpreting this constitutional article very broadly the CCrt also rests on the restrictions in the ECHR articles. Whereas some rights are formulated without limitations in the Turkish Constitution (e.g. art. 36 and 10), on the contrary to the Convention (art. 6 and 14). In addition to that, CCrt adopted a strict interpretation regarding the subordinate rights (ECHR art. 13 and 14; Constitution art. 40 and 10) in Onurhan Solmaz case. (c) According to art. 148/4 of the Constitution, CCrt cannot examine the case as an appeal court. Many applications alleging violation of the right to fair trial requested such a review indeed. Certainly Constitutional Court rejected this type of applications relying on art. 148/4. In addition to that, some applications regarding the reliability of the evidence were also rejected on the basis of said article (e.g. Gündüz case), but that type of application must have been analyzed under the article of right to fair trial. (d) Many applications to CCrt are about the reasonable time clause of the article which formulates right to fair trial. The ratione temporis problem regarding reasonable time resulted in applicants’ favor. The criteria used by the CCrt in the examination of reasonable time are in conformity with that adopted by ECrtHR. However, CCrt didn’t rule violation of article 40 (effective remedy) which regulates effective remedy. It can be beneficial if the CCrt holds that there is a violation of article 40 together with article 36 (fair trial), taking into consideration the lack of effective remedy for lengthy trial in Turkey. In other words CCrt can follow the line of Kudla case of ECrtHR.