Individual Application

The Facts

The applicant went to the branch of the bank to obtain a bank credit upon the message from the bank informing her of an available credit limit. The bank officer indicated that in order to complete the proceedings required for bank credit, the applicant should sign the contract and write the following: “I received a copy by hand.” Although the applicant indicated that she could not write the requested sentence due to her visual impairment but they could use different methods such as the braille alphabet or camera recording, the applicant was kept waiting more than two hours in the bank and she had to leave the bank without obtaining the credit. The applicant initiated an action for compensation against the bank before the civil court, seeking compensation for pecuniary damage. The trial court partially accepted the request and ordered the payment of the pecuniary damages to the applicant by the defendant bank. Having examined the request for appeal filed by the bank, the regional court of appeal accepted the appeal request and dismissed the case with no right of appeal.

The Applicant’s Allegations

The applicant maintained that there had been a violation of the prohibition of discrimination in conjunction with the right to protect and improve one’s corporeal and spiritual existence since she had been kept waiting for a long period of time due to the failure to determine how she would sign the contract with her visual impairment in the private bank that offered her credit.

The Court’s Assessment

In the present case, it is clear that the applicant was treated the same as the individuals who are not visually impaired and wish to obtain bank credit. Accordingly, the inability of the applicant to obtain bank credit due to her visual impairment constitutes a differential treatment. Therefore, the treatment in question caused differences in terms of obtaining bank credit among the clients of the bank in similar conditions.

The impugned bank could not demonstrate that the differential treatment towards the applicant due to her visual impairment had relied on objective and justified grounds. The State has the positive obligation to ensure that disabled individuals can maintain an equal life as other individuals without any disability. As a matter of fact, national and international instruments also underline the importance of the protection of disabled individuals against discriminative treatments.

In its reasoned decision, the regional court of appeal considered that the failure of the bank to provide credit to the applicant had stemmed from the confusion of the bank officer as to the technical proceedings to be employed for visually impaired individuals. Therefore, it appears that the special needs of the visually impaired applicant had not been taken into account. Neither the bank nor the regional court of appeal showed that the due diligence had been paid for employing an alternative measure to provide bank credit in consideration of the applicant’s special situation. Under these circumstances, the main reason of the inability of the applicant to obtain a bank credit is the applicant’s being visually impaired and the failure to apply the relevant statutory provisions in consideration of the constitutional principles. The regional court of appeal failed to put forward a relevant and sufficient ground indicating that the national and international regulations as to the legal transactions of disabled individuals had been interpreted in light of the constitutional safeguards.

Therefore, it has been concluded that the different treatment towards the applicant on grounds of her visual impairment, which prevented her from benefiting from the bank credit and caused her to wait for a long period of time in the bank, did not rely on an objective and justified reason.

Consequently, the Court has found a violation of the prohibition of discrimination in conjunction with right to protect and improve one’s corporeal and spiritual existence.