PROCEDURE

The case originated in an application (no. 82/02) against the Republic of Turkey lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by three Turkish nationals, Mr Ali Erdem, Mr İbrahim Erdem and Mr İsmail Şenyılmaz (“the applicants”), on 28 June 2001.

The applicants were represented by Mr C. Şanlı, Mr M. Karabıyık and Mr A. Gündüz, lawyers practising in Istanbul. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) did not designate an Agent for the purposes of the proceedings before the Court.

On 20 December 2005 the Court decided to give notice of the application to the Government. Under the provisions of Article 29 § 3 of the Convention, it decided to examine the merits of the application at the same time as its admissibility.

THE FACTS

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE

The applicants were born in 1940, 1944 and 1933 respectively and live in Istanbul.

In 1995 Kocaeli Provincial Private Administration Office (Kocaeli İl Özel İdare Müdürlüğü) expropriated a plot of land belonging to the applicants in order to expand the Kocaeli organised industrial zone. A committee of experts assessed the value of the plot of land and the relevant amount was paid to the applicants following the expropriation.

On 23 October 1996 the applicants brought an action in the Gebze Civil Court of First Instance requesting additional compensation. The applicants argued that the plot of land in question should have been considered as urbanised land (arsa) instead of rural land. Three on-site inspections were conducted and three separate expert reports were received by the court. The applicants requested the court to dismiss two experts who took part in the preparation of a report, alleging that these experts were not impartial since they were civil servants. During the hearing on 22 December 1997, the applicants stated that they agreed to base the additional compensation on the lowest amount submitted in the expert reports. On 29 December 1997 the First Instance Court decided that the plot of land in question should be classified as urbanised land and awarded the applicants a certain amount of additional compensation. When deciding on the amount of additional compensation, the court relied on the outcome of another action which qualified the same plot of land as urbanised land.

On 16 June 1998 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment on the ground that the expert reports were not sufficient basis for a judgment.

On 4 November 1998 the Gebze Civil Court of First Instance challenged the decision of the Court of Cassation (direnme kararı). The case file was transferred to the Grand Chamber of the Court of Cassation for Civil Law Matters (Hukuk Genel Kurulu).

On 23 December 1998 the Grand Chamber of the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment of 4 November 1998.

On 9 May 2000 the Gebze Civil Court of First Instance decided that the plot of land was of rural nature. In reaching this decision, the court conducted four more on-site inspections and relied on four additional expert reports, where the experts observed that the plot was not reserved for habitation under any urban plan (imar planı) of the Municipality or the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement; it was not situated within residential areas; and there was no annotation in the land registry that this plot was to be used for tourism purposes. Instead, the plot was classified as “field” in the Land Registry. Following the on‑site inspections, the experts decided that the plot should be classified as rural land. Against this background, the court awarded the applicants an additional compensation of 22,568,437,760 Turkish liras (TRL) (approximately 13,080 euros (EUR)) plus interest at the statutory rate, running from 15 October 1996 for Mr Ali Erdem and from 22 October 1996 for the other applicants.

On 19 September 2000 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment.

On 26 January 2001 the Court of Cassation dismissed the request for rectification.

On 20 February 2001 the Kocaeli Provincial Private Administration Office paid the applicants the total sum of TRL 72,198,960,506 (approximately EUR 41,850) interest included.