Published on 2 December 2024
 
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 13426/23
İsmail ŞENGÜL
against Türkiye
lodged on 24 March 2023
communicated on 14 November 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
At the material time, the applicant was a member of the Executive Committee of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a left-wing pro-Kurdish political party, and an adviser to an elected member of the National Assembly for the HDP. The application concerns the applicant’s pre-trial detention in the context of a criminal investigation opened against him for membership of a terrorist organisation, namely the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an illegal armed organisation).
The applicant alleges that his pre-trial detention violated Article 5 §§ 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1.  Did the applicant exhaust all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, in respect of his complaints under Article 5 of the Convention?
 
2.  Was the applicant’s pre-trial detention compatible with the requirements of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, can the applicant be considered to have been detained on the basis of a “reasonable suspicion” that he had committed an offence, within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention (see, in particular, Fox, Campbell and Hartley v. the United Kingdom, 30 August 1990, § 32, Series A no. 182)? Was the evidence that was available in the file at the time of the applicant’s pre-trial detention sufficient to satisfy an objective observer that he may have committed the offence attributed to him (see, mutatis mutandis, Mergen and Others v. Turkey, nos. 44062/09 and 4 others, §§ 46-55, 31 May 2016, and Yüksel and Others v. Turkey, nos. 55835/09 and 2 others, §§ 51-60, 31 May 2016)?
 
3.  Was the applicant informed promptly of the reasons for his arrest and of any charge against him, as required by Article 5 § 2 of the Convention (see Döner and Others v. Turkey, no. 29994/02, §§ 46-49, 7 March 2017)?
 
4.  Did the magistrates who ordered the applicant’s initial and continued pre-trial detention fulfil their obligation under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention to provide relevant and sufficient grounds in support of the deprivation of liberty in question? In addition, was the length of the applicant’s pre-trial detention in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see, in particular, Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova [GC], no. 23755/07, §§ 84-102, 5 July 2016)?
 
5.  Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective remedy by which the lawfulness of his detention could be determined speedily, and his release ordered if necessary, as required by Article 5 § 4 of the Convention (compare Khokhlov v. Cyprus, no. 53114/20, §§ 72‑83, 13 June 2023)? In this context, the Government are in particular invited to respond to the complaint made by the applicant that the time taken by the Constitutional Court to examine his individual application had been unreasonably long.