CYPRUS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT
31
113. The Court, for its part, endorses the application of this standard, all
the more so since it was first articulated in the context of a previous
inter-State case and has, since the date of the adoption of the judgment in
that case, become part of the Court's established case-law (for a recent
example, see Salman v. Turkey [GC], no. 21986/93, § 100, ECHR 2000VII).
Moreover, as regards the establishment of the existence of administrative
practices, the Court does not rely on the concept that the burden of proof is
borne by one or the other of the two Governments concerned. Rather, it
must examine all the material before it, irrespective of its origin (see the
above-mentioned Ireland v. the United Kingdom judgment, p. 64 § 160).
114. The Court notes, however, that the applicant Government have
disputed the appropriateness of applying the above-mentioned standard of
proof with respect to their allegations that the violations of the Convention
of which they complain result from administrative practices on the part of
the respondent State. In their submission, the Commission erred in not
having regard to the existence of “substantial evidence” of administrative
practices and its reliance on the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard
prevented it from reaching the correct conclusion on the facts as regards a
number of complaints. For the applicant Government, the standard of proof
applied by the Commission is at variance with the approach followed by the
Court in its Ireland v. the United Kingdom judgment, an approach which,
they maintain, had already been anticipated in the Commission's decision in
the “Greek case” (Yearbook 12).
115. The Court recalls however that in its Ireland v. the United Kingdom
judgment, it rejected the Irish Government's submission that the “beyond
reasonable doubt” standard of proof was an excessively rigid standard for
establishing the existence of an administrative practice of violation of
Article 3 of the Convention (loc. cit., pp. 64-65, § 161). The “beyond
reasonable doubt” standard was applied in that case in order to determine
whether the evidence bore out the allegation of a practice of violation. The
Court will accordingly assess the facts as found by the Commission with
reference to this standard. Furthermore, the Court will apply the definition
of an administrative practice incompatible with the Convention set out in its
Ireland v. the United Kingdom judgment, namely an accumulation of
identical or analogous breaches which are sufficiently numerous and interconnected to amount not merely to isolated incidents or exceptions but to a
pattern or system (ibid., p. 64, § 159).
116. The Court further recalls that, in the area of the exhaustion of
domestic remedies, there is a distribution of the burden of proof. In the
context of the instant case, it is incumbent on the respondent Government
claiming non-exhaustion to satisfy the Court that the remedy was an
effective one available in theory and in practice at the relevant time, that is
to say, that it was accessible, was one which was capable of providing