State ‘guilty of negligance’ in bus crash in central Turkey 19 years ago

KONYA

The Constitutional Court has ruled for the state to pay compensation to the victims of a 1997 bus accident that left a total of 49 people dead. 

The ruling published in the Official Gazette stated that the state would pay 30,000 Turkish Liras of compensation to the victims for failing to finalize a production mistake case after the accident timely, Anadolu Agency reported. 

A total of 49 people burned to death when a tanker and a bus crashed in 1997. 


Cases rejected

The relatives of the people who lost their lives filed several complaints before applying to the top court with the demand that the defective production of the bus be investigated. 

The applicants said the complaints they filed for the defective manufacturing and compensation for material and moral damage were rejected. 

The victims added that their right to a fair trial was violated as the closure of the cases took between some 11 and 15 years. 

They also said that their relatives’ right to life was violated when the state allowed the wrongly-produced buses to be put onto the market. 

The Constitutional Court stated that the responsibility of protecting the right to life was violated.