Background
The Court jointly examined 591 applications arising from convictions for membership of the armed organisation that Turkish authorities call the FETÖ/PDY and consider responsible for the attempted coup of 15 July 2016. The convictions rested decisively on findings that the applicants had used ByLock, an encrypted messaging application that the Turkish courts treated as designed exclusively for FETÖ/PDY members.
Some case files also contained other evidence, including decrypted messages, witness statements, Bank Asya activity, links to affiliated organisations or institutions, social-media activity, travel records, digital communications, or participation in organisational activities. In some proceedings, however, the courts convicted without awaiting detailed ByLock reports because they regarded proof of ByLock use as sufficient by itself. The Constitutional Court summarily rejected the applicants’ individual applications as inadmissible under its established case-law.
The Court’s Holding
The European Court of Human Rights unanimously held that the proceedings violated Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. Applying its reasoning in Yüksel Yalçınkaya and Demirhan and Others, it found that the Turkish courts’ uniform treatment of mere ByLock use as conclusive proof of every element of armed-terrorist-organisation membership shaped the proceedings even where additional evidence existed. The domestic courts failed to provide safeguards allowing the applicants to challenge the central ByLock evidence effectively, address the decisive issues, and receive adequately reasoned decisions.
The Court acknowledged the difficulties Türkiye faced after the attempted coup but found that the restrictions on fair-trial rights were not strictly required by the emergency. It did not separately examine the Article 7 complaints or the remaining Convention claims. The finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction for non-pecuniary damage, and the Court made no costs award; it identified Convention-compliant reopening of the domestic proceedings, if requested, as the most appropriate form of redress in principle.
Key Takeaways
- The judgment joins 591 applications; because some applications include more than one applicant, it does not establish that there were only 591 applicants.
- Additional evidence in individual files did not cure the systemic procedural defect created by treating established ByLock use as conclusive proof of criminal membership.
- The applicants may seek reopening under Article 311 § 1 (f) of Türkiye’s Code of Criminal Procedure, with any renewed proceedings required to reflect the judgment’s conclusions and spirit.
Why It Matters
The decision extends the Court’s established ByLock reasoning across a large group of Turkish terrorism-membership cases. It confirms that the defect was not confined to one prosecution: a uniform evidentiary approach may violate Article 6 when it prevents defendants from effectively contesting decisive digital evidence and when domestic judgments do not answer the central issues.
The judgment does not itself determine that none of the applicants could lawfully be convicted. It recognizes that other evidence might establish the required organisational link in particular cases, but any reconsideration must assess that evidence through proceedings that satisfy Convention fair-trial standards.