Background
Hikmet Erçin, a Turkish national born in 1992 with documented epilepsy and a 65% disability rating, was conscripted into compulsory military service in August 2012. During his pre-enlistment medical examination in September 2011, the examining physician found him fit for service. Erçin maintains he disclosed his condition, though the record was contested: he did not produce his disability report to the examining doctor on the day, and his answers on the health information form were inconsistent. One day after he joined his unit, the initial examining doctor noted “epilepsy – transfer to neurology” on his fitness card, but no transfer occurred before he suffered a serious epileptic fit on 2 September 2012, falling and injuring himself. He was hospitalized in intensive care and underwent multiple surgical operations over the following months, before being discharged from military service in July 2013 as unfit.
Erçin lodged criminal complaints against the pre-enlistment physician and the Military Directorate officials. Both investigations concluded there was no fault: the doctor had not been told of the disability, and Erçin had not proven he later submitted his medical report to the Directorate. He also brought a compensation action before the Supreme Military Administrative Court (Military Administrative Court). That court found a “service fault” in the failure to conduct further tests given the health concerns Erçin had indicated, and awarded him TRY 3,000 (approximately EUR 1,052) in non-pecuniary damages. However, it also ordered him to pay TRY 3,900 in legal fees to the State administration—an amount exceeding his compensation award—effectively leaving him with a net loss from the litigation.
Erçin applied to the Constitutional Court, complaining of ill-treatment, violation of his right of access to a court due to the fee order, and lack of independence and impartiality of the Military Administrative Court. The Constitutional Court rejected all complaints as manifestly ill-founded. He then applied to the European Court of Human Rights, relying on Articles 3 and 6 of the Convention.
The Court’s Holding
On Article 3 (inhuman or degrading treatment), the Court found no substantive violation. It accepted that deficiencies existed in the conscription procedure—the pre-enlistment physician had not probed the health issues Erçin indicated and had not referred him for specialist evaluation—and that there was a gap between the post-conscription diagnosis of epilepsy and his transfer for treatment. However, the Court was unable to establish that the State bore responsibility for the occurrence of the epileptic fit itself. Crucially, once the fit occurred, the authorities responded promptly: Erçin was taken by ambulance to the regimental infirmary, then admitted to intensive care and given sustained hospital treatment, eventually leading to his discharge. The procedural deficiencies in conscription could not, in isolation, establish the degree of responsibility required to engage Article 3 liability.
On Article 6 § 1 (right of access to a court), the Court found two separate violations. First, the imposition of legal fees exceeding and thereby absorbing the entirety of the non-pecuniary compensation awarded to Erçin impaired the very essence of his right of access to a court. The State provided no weighty reasons justifying a fee order that completely neutralised his successful claim. The Constitutional Court’s reasoning—that Erçin could have lodged a lower initial claim and increased it during proceedings—did not adequately address the disproportionate result produced by the fee scale as applied. Second, the Military Administrative Court lacked the requisite independence and impartiality because the military officers sitting as judges on that bench did not enjoy adequate constitutional safeguards in their capacity as military judges, in line with the Court’s established case-law on the structural deficiencies of Türkiye’s pre-2017 military court system.
Key Takeaways
- A “service fault” in a conscription procedure does not automatically establish an Article 3 violation where the State subsequently provides timely and comprehensive medical care; the Court will assess the full picture of the authorities’ conduct, not only the initial failure.
- A court fee order that entirely negates or exceeds a successful claimant’s compensation award strikes at the very essence of the right of access to a court under Article 6 § 1 and requires weighty justification the State did not provide here.
- Military officers serving as judges on military administrative courts must possess adequate constitutional guarantees of independence; their structural absence—as found in Türkiye’s Supreme Military Administrative Court before the 2017 constitutional reform—constitutes a violation of Article 6 § 1’s impartiality requirement.
Why It Matters
This judgment reinforces the Court’s protective approach to the practical effectiveness of court access. A rule that a successful litigant may leave court worse off financially than before filing—because adverse fee orders exceed the judgment in their favour—cannot stand under Article 6 absent compelling justification. The ruling will be relevant wherever domestic cost-allocation rules operate mechanically against claimants who achieve only partial success, particularly in administrative proceedings where the State is a party and represented by in-house counsel whose fees are recoverable.
On the military-court impartiality point, the judgment adds to a well-established line of Strasbourg authority (building on Tanışma v. Turkey and related cases) confirming that the structural reform effected by Türkiye’s 2017 constitutional amendments was necessary. For other Council of Europe member states that retain hybrid military-civilian judicial bodies, the case serves as a reminder that constitutional or statutory guarantees of judicial independence must extend meaningfully to all members of the bench, regardless of their military rank or status.