ECHR urges Turkey to speed up court trials

STRASBOURG (AA) - European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has said it had suspended looking into petitions against Turkey over complaints on long trial periods, giving Ankara chance to come up with a solution that would speed up judicial process in the EU-hopeful country as well as reduce the top court's backlog of cases. The top court said it would not be reviewing for a year nearly 3,000 thousand petitions filed against Turkey to see if the country can devise an effective domestic remedy for complaints on prolonged trial process after a proposal made by Turkish Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin during his latest visit to Strasbourg. ECHR will  however continue to process 330 cases which had been notified to Ankara earlier. The Strasbourg court expects Turkey to set up a commission and take measures to allay unjust treatment in a year's time before it selects a pilot case to assess if those measures complied with the court's case law.    ECHR had ruled earlier to accept a Turkish Cypriot commission as an effective domestic remedy for complaints by Greek Cypriots over property issues.