Background
Hundreds of applicants from Turkey brought cases to the European Court of Human Rights complaining about excessively long proceedings in the Turkish courts.
One of the applicants was Fatma Ormancı. Her husband was killed in 1991, when terrorists raided the village of Kahramanmaraş and killed all of the male inhabitants.
Along with the dead man’s children, Mrs Ormancı brought a case against the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They claimed that the State had breached its responsibility to protect the life and security of its citizens.
The claimants won the case. However, it took almost six years for the courts to deal with the claim.