Update on Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights Affecting Criminal Law/Criminal Procedure

AuthorRichard Lang,Zainab A Bangura
DOI10.1177/203228441100200409
Date01 December 2011
Published date01 December 2011
Subject MatterUpdate
New Journal of Eur opean Crimina l Law, Vol. 2, Issue 4, 2011 457
UPDATE
UPDATE ON DECISIONS OF THE EUROPEAN
COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AFFECTING
CRIMINAL LAW/CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
R L and Z A B*
ABSTR ACT
For ease of reading, cert ain cases have been omitted from this summary. ey are ca ses
solely concerning the leng th of proceedings, cases solely conce rning the presence of a
military judge on the bench, ca ses solely concerning the censorship of letter s, and other
“repetitive” or “recurrent” ca ses which disclose no new point of law.
ACET AND OTHERS v TURKEY
Date of Judgement 18October 2011
e applicants are 16 Turkish nationals. ey were born between 1956 and 1994 and
live in Turkey. e deceased, Ismail Acet, born in 1983, who was either their son,
brother or half-brother, began his milita ry service on 7 October 2003. Ismail was
examined on severa l occasions by a psychiatrist, who conrmed that he had a n anti-
social personal ity and observed that he was under the inuence of d rugs. On 26May
2004, at the age of 21, while he was on gua rd duty, Ismail shot himself in the head wit h
his service weapon.
Although it noted that there wa s a system of measures put in place by Turkey with
a view to protecting the physica l and psychical integrit y of soldiers, the European
Court held that, in t his case, that system should have been fol lowed by further
practical measu res, and that the authorities should have dispensed the young s oldier
from duties which entailed ha ndling weapons. Violation of Article2.
* Richard La ng BA(Hons), LL.M, Ph .D is a Senior Lecturer at the S chool of Law, e University of
Bedfordshire , and is Of Counsel to Kem mler Rapp Böhlke & C rosby, Brussels. Zai nab A Bangura is
an LL.B ca ndidate at the University of B edfordshire.

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