The European Court of Human Rights holds that Türkiye must release
Mr Kavala immediately and eliminate the consequences of his conviction
In today’s Grand Chamber judgment1 in the case of Kavala v. Türkiye (no. 2) (application no. 2170/24)
the European Court of Human Rights held, by 15 votes to 2, that there had been:
a violation of Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of assembly and of association) of
the European Convention on Human Rights;
a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) with regard to the complaints concerning the
independence and impartiality of the courts, the fairness of the proceedings and restrictions on the
rights of the defence;
a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security);
a violation of Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights), taken together with Articles 5 § 1,
6 § 1, 10 and 11; and
a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) with regard to the complaint
concerning the absence of a review mechanism in respect of the aggravated life sentence.
The Court held that the respondent State was required to secure the applicant’s release at the
earliest possible date, and that it was incumbent on it to eliminate the consequences of the
measures taken against him. His criminal conviction was to be regarded, under Convention law, as
null and void.
Mr Kavala has been deprived of his liberty without interruption since 18 October 2017. He was
suspected of having attempted to overthrow the Government through force and violence, in relation
to the Gezi Park events between May and September 2013, and of attempting to overthrow the
constitutional order in the context of the attempted coup d’état of 15 July 2016.
Today’s Grand Chamber judgment examined the events which occurred after December 2019, and
concluded that Mr Kavala’s detention and conviction had been in breach of the Convention. It
confirmed the findings in the Court’s previous judgments, of 10 December 2019 (Kavala v. Turkey,
no. 28749/18) and of 11 July 2022 (Kavala v. Türkiye (infringement proceedings)).
After having noted, in particular, the existence of a flagrant denial of justice in respect of Mr Kavala
and held that the contested measures pursued the ulterior purpose of silencing him, the Court
emphasised that the present case illustrated a systemic problem. It was part of a wider context,
marked by the detention and prosecution of political opponents, human-rights defenders and
journalists on the basis of criminal offences, the scope of which was interpreted extensively. The
violations found in the present case also revealed structural shortcomings which affected the
guarantees of independence and impartiality of the judiciary, and which were likely to facilitate the
exerting of direct or indirect influence by the executive branch on certain judicial decisions,
particularly in cases with a sensitive political dimension.
A legal summary of this case will be available in the Court’s database HUDOC (link).
1. Grand Chamber judgments are final (Article 44 of the Convention).
All final judgments are transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of their execution. Further
information about the execution process can be found here: http://www.coe.int/t/
dghl/monitoring/execution .Principal factsThe applicant, Mr Mehmet Osman Kavala, is a Turkish national who was born in 1957 and is currently
imprisoned in Istanbul (Türkiye).
Mr Kavala, a businessman, is a human-rights defender in Türkiye. He has been involved in setting up
numerous non-governmental organisations (“NGOs”) and civil-society movements which are active in
the areas of human rights, culture, social studies, historical reconciliation and environmental
protection.
The applicant has been deprived of his liberty without interruption since 18 October 2017. He was
initially suspected of having attempted to overthrow the Government through force and violence, in
relation to the Gezi Park events, and of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, in relation
to the coup d’état of 15 July 2016 which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in Türkiye from
20 July 2016 to 18 July 2018.
On 25 April 2022 the Istanbul 13th Assize Court convicted Mr Kavala of the charge related to
the Gezi Park events and sentenced him to aggravated life imprisonment; it also ordered his continued
detention in that connection. The conviction was upheld by the appeal court on 28 December 2022,
then by the Court of Cassation on 28 September 2023.
The applicant’s detention has been the subject of two judgments by the Court. In its Kavala v. Turkey
judgment of 10 December 2019, the Court found violations of Articles 5 §§ 1 and 4 and of Article 18,
taken together with Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, on account of the lack of “reasonableness” in the
suspicions used to justify the applicant’s initial placement in pre-trial detention, and his continued
detention.
The judgment was transmitted to the Committee of Ministers for supervision of its execution. On
2 February 2022 the Committee of Minsters decided, in an interim resolution, to refer to the Court
the question whether the Republic of Türkiye had failed to fulfil its obligation to abide by the
judgment. On 11 July 2022 the Court delivered the Kavala v. Türkiye (infringement proceedings)
judgment, in which it concluded that this obligation had not been complied with.
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court
Relying on Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the
Convention, the applicant submitted that the criminal proceedings brought against him, the
imposition of an aggravated life sentence and the ensuing deprivation of liberty amounted to an
unjustified interference with the exercise of his rights.
Relying on Article 6 §§ 1 (right to a fair trial) and 3 (d) (right to examine witnesses), the applicant
complained of the unfairness of the criminal proceedings against him.
Relying on Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security), the applicant argued that, in view of the particular
circumstances of the case, his detention since the Court’s delivery of the Kavala judgment on
10 December 2019 had amounted to arbitrary deprivation of liberty.
Relying on Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights), taken together with Articles 5 § 1,
6 § 1, 10 and 11, the applicant alleged that his Convention rights had been restricted for purposes
other than those prescribed in the Convention.
Lastly, the applicant submitted that the imposition of a life sentence without the possibility of parole
amounted to a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the
Convention.
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 18 January 2024.
On 16 December 2025 a Chamber of the Second Section relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the
Grand Chamber.
A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 25 March 2026.
Judgment was given by the Grand Chamber of 17 judges, composed as follows:
Mattias Guyomar (France), President,
Arnfinn Bårdsen (Norway),
Ivana Jelić (Montenegro),
Lado Chanturia (Georgia),
Ioannis Ktistakis (Greece),
Kateřina Šimáčková (the Czech Republic),
Faris Vehabović (Bosnia and Herzegovina),
Jovan Ilievski (North Macedonia),
Gilberto Felici (San Marino),
Saadet Yüksel (Türkiye),
Diana Sârcu (the Republic of Moldova),
Artūrs Kučs (Latvia),
Mateja Đurović (Serbia),
András Jakab (Austria),
Canòlic Mingorance Cairat (Andorra),
Vahe Grigoryan (Armenia),
Hugh Mercer (the United Kingdom),
and also Abel Campos, Deputy Registrar.
Decision of the Court
Failure to exhaust domestic remedies
The Court considered that the applicant had not been required to await the outcome of proceedings
that were pending before the Constitutional Court, in view of his continuous detention since October
2017 and his consistent but unsuccessful use of all the domestic remedies. It also noted that the case
was characterised by a persistent failure to execute the Court’s judgments, by the lack of tangible
effect of the acquittal judgment and by a series of detention measures that were incompatible with
the conclusions of its Kavala v. Turkey judgment of 19 December 2019. In dispensing the applicant
from the obligation to await the outcome of his two pending individual applications to the
Constitutional Court, the Court had regard to the excessive length of time taken to examine them.
Articles 10 and 11
The Court considered that the acts in respect of which the applicant was charged – participation in
public debate, assistance with civil-society initiatives, advocacy activities and support for the peaceful
Gezi Park demonstrations – fell within the scope of the rights guaranteed by Articles 10 and 11 of the
Convention. By equating those activities with the material element of an exceptionally serious offence,
without establishing the applicant’s direct participation in the acts of violence committed by third
parties, the domestic courts had imposed on him a manifestly disproportionate and arbitrary criminal
liability. It noted that the way in which the Criminal Code had been interpreted in the present case in
relation to the accusations against the applicant concerning the Gezi Park events had had the effect
of extending that Code’s scope in an unforeseeable manner, did not afford the requisite minimum
protection against arbitrary interference and could not therefore be regarded as being “prescribed by
law”. It concluded that there had been a violation of Articles 10 and 11 of the Convention.
Article 6
The Court noted that there had been serious shortcomings in the criminal proceedings against the
applicant, affecting both the fairness of the proceedings and the guarantees of the independence and
impartiality of the courts.
The Court noted that the conviction had been based on largely contextual and insufficiently
individualised inferences. Thus, the applicant had been convicted on the basis of acts relating to the
exercise of freedoms that were guaranteed by the Convention, following an arbitrary and
unforeseeable interpretation of the criminal law.
Having regard, more widely, to a structural context undermining the independence of the justice
system in Türkiye, those shortcomings had fundamentally impaired the very essence of the applicant’s
right to a fair trial. It followed that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1.
Article 5 § 1
The Court noted that the entire period of the applicant’s deprivation of liberty since
10 December 2019 had been arbitrary, in that it was not based on reasonable grounds pursuing any
of the legitimate aims set out in the Convention. In addition, the authorities had acted in bad faith,
seeking alternative grounds to ensure the continuation of the applicant’s detention and to circumvent
the requirements of domestic law. Nor could the applicant’s detention in the present case, based on
the execution of a sentence imposed following proceedings in which there had been a flagrant denial
of justice, be regarded as “lawful” within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention.
The Court concluded that the applicant’s deprivation of liberty, viewed as a whole since 10 December
2019, had entailed a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention.
Article 18
Having regard to all the circumstances of the case, the Court considered it established that the
measures taken against the applicant (the bringing of criminal proceedings, his continued pre-trial
detention and his conviction) had been predominantly motivated by an ulterior purpose, namely, to
punish him for his role in the Gezi Park demonstrations and for expressing his opinions as a human-
rights defender, and to silence him. The applicant’s prolonged deprivation of liberty, which had
continued despite an acquittal judgment at the domestic level and two legally binding judgments in
which the Court had found serious violations, disclosed a particularly serious challenge to the essential
guarantees inherent in the principle of the rule of law.
In consequence, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 18 taken together with
Articles 5 § 1, 6 § 1, 10 and 11 of the Convention.
Article 3
The Court noted that the fact of imposing on the applicant a life sentence without the possibility of
parole was incompatible with Article 3 of the Convention. It held that there had been a violation of
this provision.
Article 46
The Court found, in particular, that the applicant’s deprivation of liberty following his conviction on
25 April 2022, which had become final, had been based on a flagrant denial of justice. It also noted
that this imprisonment had been imposed in the context of proceedings that were tainted by multiple
interrelated violations of the rights enshrined in the Convention, thus impairing the very essence of
the guarantees afforded by Article 6. In those conditions, the applicant’s continued incarceration after
the adoption of the present judgment would amount to a continuation of the violations already found
in this case, especially of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention. Having regard to the particular circumstances
4of the case, the seriousness of the violations found of Articles 5 § 1, 6 § 1, 10 and 11 of the Convention,
and of Article 18 taken together with those provisions, and the urgent necessity of putting them to an
end, the Court considered that the respondent State was required to secure the applicant’s release at
the earliest possible date.
Moreover, it was incumbent on the respondent State to put in place, as soon as possible, all
appropriate measures in order to eliminate the consequences of the applicant’s conviction and to
remedy, in an effective manner, the violations found.
The Court emphasised that full compliance with the Constitutional Court’s judgments was essential to
upholding the rule of law. In this connection, it reiterated that, as the Constitutional Court had also
pointed out, a failure to enforce that court’s rulings was likely to compromise the effectiveness of the
individual application procedure and to undermine the constitutional order, by depriving applicants
of the tangible application of their recognised rights. Furthermore, Article 46 of the Convention placed
a legally binding obligation on the States Parties to abide by the final judgments of the Court, which
implied their full, effective and prompt execution.
Just satisfaction (Article 41)
The Court held, by 15 votes to 2, that Türkiye was to pay the applicant 70,000 euros (EUR) in respect
of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 43,342.57 in respect of costs and expenses.
Separate opinions
Judges Vehabović and Yüksel expressed a joint dissenting opinion, and Judge Yüksel expressed a
dissenting opinion.
