003-5086322-6264658

issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 160 (2015) 20.05.2015 Forthcoming judgments and decisions The European Court of Human Rights will be notifying in writing six judgments on Tuesday 26 May 2015 and five judgments and / or decisions on Thursday 28 May 2015. Press releases and texts of the judgments and decisions will be available at 10 a.m. (local time) on the Court's Internet site (www.echr.coe.int) Tuesday 26 May 2015 Lhermitte v. Belgium (application no. 34238/09) The applicant, Genevi�ve Lhermitte, is a Belgian national. She was born in 1966 and is currently being held in Forest prison. The case concerns the life prison sentence passed on Ms Lhermitte for the murders of her five children. On 28 February 2007 Ms Lhermitte called the emergency services to say that she had killed her five children and that she was about to commit suicide. When the police and the emergency services arrived at the scene, they found the five children with their throats cut and Ms Lhermitte suffering from injuries. The investigating judge responsible for the case ordered several psychological opinions and one psychiatric report. The trial took place before the Assize Court of the Province of Walloon Brabant from 8 to 19 December. At the end of proceedings before the Assize Court the jury was invited to answer five questions put by the President of the Assize Court. The jury replied in the affirmative as regards Ms Lhermitte's guilt and the offence of premeditated murder, and in the negative concerning her inability to control her actions. By judgment of 19 December 2008, the Assize Court accepted the guilty verdict reached by the jury and sentenced Ms Lhermitte to life imprisonment. On 8 January 2009 she lodged an appeal on points of law, which was dismissed. Relying mainly on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Ms Lhermitte maintains that her trial was unfair because no reasons were given for the jury verdict or the Assize Court judgment. Doan Altun v. Turkey (no. 7152/08) The applicant, Doan Altun, is a Turkish national. He was born in 1963 and lives in Ankara. Mr Altun was a member of the T�m Bel Sen trade union at the relevant time. The case concerns the imposition of a disciplinary sanction on Mr Altun, a trade unionist, for holding a referendum without applying for prior authorisation from the Directorate General for which he works. In November 2006 Mr Altun, together with another trade union member, installed ballot boxes outside the door of the canteen in the Directorate General responsible for municipal electricity, gas and public transport, with a view to organising a referendum on the 2007 budget. The Director of the Municipal Department of Human Resources and Training issued Mr Altun with a warning for having held a referendum without the Directorate General's authorisation. Mr Altun challenged this warning before the Municipal Disciplinary Board. The Disciplinary Board upheld the disciplinary sanction on the ground that it was mandatory to obtain the employer's authorisation. Relying on Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the Convention, the applicant complains of a breach of his right to freedom of association on account of the warning with which he was issued. Relying on Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), he complains of the lack of a domestic remedy to challenge the warning issued to him. pseftel v. Turkey (no. 18638/05) The applicant, Eftaliya pseftel, is a Turkish national. She was born in 1976 and lives in Athens (Greece). The case concerns Ms pseftel's inability to recover a property which she had inherited from her father and which had been entered in the land register as belonging to the Treasury. In May 1976 Ms pseftel's father purchased a plot of land located in G�k�eada in Turkey. No corresponding title deed was ever entered in the land register. Ms pseftel and her father left the country to settle in Athens. Ms pseftel's father died. In September 1995 the 110 m� plot of land in question, on which a stone house had been built, was entered in the land register as belonging to the Treasury. Ms pseftel has never been able to take possession of this property, which had belonged to her father. Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), Ms pseftel complains of a violation of her right to respect for her property. Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair trial), she complains that the domestic courts failed to take sufficient action to establish ownership before deciding on the dispute and to provide adequate reasons for their decisions. Song�l nce and Others v. Turkey (nos. 25595/08 and 34252/10) The 18 applicants are Turkish nationals. They were born between 1951 and 1977, and were being held at Bayrampasa prison at the relevant time. The case concerns the "death fast", a hunger strike launched by a large number of prisoners in Turkey in October 2000 in protest at a prison project involving reducing cell sizes for prisoners. On 18 December 2000 the Director of Bayrampasa prison requested intervention by the security forces, explaining that 45 prisoners on hunger strike were refusing to submit to medical examinations and treatment being offered by the prison medical staff. On 19 December 2000 the security forces intervened simultaneously in some 20 different prisons. During that operation there were violent clashes between the security forces and the prisoners. 12 prisoners were killed and some 50 injured, some of them by firearm, in Bayrampasa prison where the applicants were incarcerated. After their evacuation, the injured applicants were taken to hospital and the others were transferred to different prisons. Relying on Articles 2 (right to life) and 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment), the applicants complain of the use of force, which they consider to have been excessive and disproportionate, by the authorities during the operation in Bayrampasa prison. They complain that they were subjected to the unjustified use of teargas and, relying on Article 3, that they suffered ill-treatment during their evacuation and transfer and in the prisons to which they were transferred. The Court will give its rulings in writing on the following cases, some of which concern issues which have already been submitted to the Court, including excessive length of proceedings. These rulings can be consulted from the day of their delivery on the Court's online database HUDOC. They will not appear in the press release issued on that day. Berki v. Hungary (no. 31162/09) T�th v. Hungary (no. 14099/12) Thursday 28 May 2015 Y. v. Slovenia (no. 41107/10) The applicant, Ms Y., is a Slovenian national who was born in Ukraine in 1987. She arrived in Slovenia in 2000 with her sister and mother, who had married a Slovenian. The case concerns Y.'s complaint about the criminal proceedings brought against a family friend she accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting her, alleging that the proceedings were excessively long and traumatic for her. Y.'s mother first lodged a criminal complaint against the family friend in July 2002, accusing him of having forced her daughter, who was 14 years old, to engage in sexual intercourse with him between July and December 2001. The family friend, 55 years old at the time, often took care of Y., together with his wife, helping her to prepare for beauty contests. In the course of the ensuing investigation and trial, the domestic authorities questioned Y. and her alleged assailant (who denied having had any sexual relations with Y.), examined a number of witnesses and appointed experts to clarify the conflicting testimonies. Thus, two gynaecological reports neither confirmed nor disproved Y.'s allegations and two other experts came to contradictory conclusions: the first, a psychologist, found that Y. clearly showed symptoms of sexual abuse; and the second, an expert in orthopaedics, considered that the defendant could not have overpowered Y. and performed the acts of which he was accused on account of a disability (his left arm had been disabled since birth). In September 2009, after having held 12 hearings in total, the domestic courts acquitted Y.'s alleged assailant of all charges. The state prosecutor's appeal against that judgment was rejected in May 2010, as was Y.'s request for the protection of legality with the Supreme State Prosecutor a few months later. Ms Y.'s complaints are twofold. She first alleges under Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) that the investigation into her allegation of sexual assault on her and the ensuing judicial proceedings were unreasonably delayed � having lasted seven years between the lodging of her complaint and the pronouncement of the first-instance judgment � and ineffective, the authorities being biased against her on account of her Ukrainian origin. Secondly, she complains under Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of breaches of her personal integrity during the criminal proceedings and in particular that she had been traumatised by having been cross-examined by the defendant himself during two of the hearings in her case. The Court will give its rulings in writing on the following cases, some of which concern issues which have already been submitted to the Court, including excessive length of proceedings. These rulings can be consulted from the day of their delivery on the Court's online database HUDOC. They will not appear in the press release issued on that day. Kiss v. Hungary (no. 12166/11) Kovacs v. Hungary (no. 67967/10) Somosine Tesenyi v. Hungary (no. 17007/11) Oral v. Turkey (no. 32934/09) This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court's press releases, please subscribe here: www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en or follow us on Twitter @ECHRpress. Press contacts [email protected] | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08 Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) C�line Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79) Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09) The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 4