Party for a Democratic Society (DTP) and Others v. Turkey, Nos. 3840/10, 3870/10, 3878/10 and other 4, ECtHR (Second Section), 6 January 2016

Banning of a pro-Kurdish political party and forfeiture of the mandates of certain of its members of parliament. Political solution to the Kurdish issue and recognition of Kurdish identity.

Art. 11 ECHR
Art. 3 Prot. No. 1 ECHR

1. In the exercise of balancing competing interests, national authorities must take sufficient account of the demands of political pluralism, without which there can be no democratic society.

2. Only very serious violations, for example those threatening political pluralism or the fundamental principles of democracy, can justify the banning of a political party’s activities.

3. A political party’s failure to openly distance itself from the acts or speeches of its members or local leaders likely to be interpreted as indirect support for terrorism cannot in itself amount to a reason justifying a sanction of such severity as the dissolution of the entire party, in so far as they did not encourage the use of violence, armed resistance or insurrection and no political project of that party could be held incompatible with the concept of democratic society.

(In the present case, the Turkish Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of a party which had been one of the main political actors arguing in favour of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem).

The ECtHR unanimously found that, there being no reasonable relationship of proportionality between the applicant party’s dissolution and the legitimate aims pursued, the Turkish Constitutional Court violated article 11 of the Convention. Furthermore, the ECtHR unanimously held that the penalty imposed on the applicants was incompatible with the very substance of the applicants’ right under article 3 of protocol no. 1 ECHR to be elected and to sit in parliament, and infringed the sovereign power of the electorate who had elected them as members of parliament.