CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 21 octobre 2024

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s665E407E { margin-top:66pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } Published on 12 November 2024   SECOND SECTION Application no. 21608/20 Ali SARIBEY against Türkiye lodged on 11 May 2020 communicated on 21 October 2024 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The applicant is a convict, who was serving a life sentence in prison at the time of lodging the present application. He had problems with one of the guardians who allegedly physically and verbally harassed him. In connection with this issue, he requested a session with the prison’s psychotherapist. During the session, after mentioning the guardian’s alleged harassment, the applicant stated that he had been trained as a navy commando, that he was well-trained in infighting and that he had the capacity to knock down a man with an elbow hit or a punch. In that respect, he expressed that he had been trying to control his anger against this guardian in order not to harm him, and that nevertheless, he had been obsessing about this issue. Subsequent to the psychotherapist informing the prison administration on the content of the session, the administration, by interpreting the applicant’s remarks in the psychotherapy session as an implicit threat against the guardian, opened a disciplinary investigation against him and imposed fifteen days of solitary confinement. The applicant challenged the disciplinary sanction before the Enforcement Court. During the proceedings, by his petitions of 23   November 2018, 31   December 2018 and 4 January 2019, he requested access to the witness testimonies, the recordings or notes of the psychotherapy session, the footage records of the prison and the other incident records created by the prison administration in the context of the disciplinary investigation. It appears that without communicating these elements to the applicant and without replying to the applicant’s request to that effect, the Enforcement Court dismissed his objection. The Assize Court subsequently upheld the Enforcement Court’s decision. On 16 December 2019 the Constitutional Court examined the applicant’s individual application which had been submitted under Articles   6 and 8 of the Convention under the aspect of the right to fair hearing only and rejected it for being manifestly ill-founded. Relying of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complains of the Enforcement Court’s failure to communicate the decisive documents to him, including the opinion of the public prosecutor, and of the alleged insufficiency of the reasoning of the domestic courts. Relying on Article 8 of the Convention, the applicant further complains about the breach of his right to doctor-patient confidentiality in so far as his statements during the psychotherapy session were shared with the prison authorities, as a result of which he was sanctioned with solitary confinement by way of disciplinary punishment. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES 1.     Was Article 6 of the Convention applicable, under its civil or criminal limb, to the disciplinary proceedings in question (see, in particular, Ezeh and Connors v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 39665/98 and 40086/98, §   82, ECHR 2003-X; Štitić v. Croatia , no. 29660/03, §§ 51-63, 8 November 2007; Gülmez v. Turkey , no. 16330/02, §§ 26-31, 20 May 2008; and Mariusz Lewandowski v. Poland , no. 66484/09, §§ 29-31, 3 July 2012)? If so, was the principle of equality of arms and adversarial proceedings respected in the absence of the communication of the case documents, including the public prosecutor’s written opinion, to the applicant (see, inter alia , Andrejeva v.   Latvia [GC], no. 55707/00, § 96, ECHR 2009; and Günana and Others v.   Turkey, nos. 70934/10, 6560/11, 23599/12, 39367/12 and 66687/12, §§   70-85, 20 November 2018)?   2.     Did the domestic courts’ decisions include sufficient reasoning vis-à-vis the applicant’s arguments, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see generally Ruiz Torija v. Spain , 9   December 1994, § 29, Series A   no.   303‑A; and Pişkin v. Turkey , no. 33399/18, §§   141-153, 15   December 2020)?   3.     Has there been an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention, on account of the imposition of solitary confinement based on his statements during the psychotherapy session (see, mutatis mutandis, Ekinci and Akalın v.   Turkey , no. 77097/01, § 47, 30 January 2007, and Szuluk v.   the   United Kingdom , no. 36936/05, §§ 43-48, 2 June 2009)?   If so, was that interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention? In particular, did the domestic courts strike a fair balance between the applicant’s privacy and the prevention of crime and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others aimed at with the impugned sanction (compare Szuluk , cited above, §§ 46-54)?