Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights: A Practitioner’s Handbook For example, if access to a particular domestic remedy is dependent on the discretionary power of a public authority, it will not be considered an accessible remedy.462 For examples, applications to the constitutional court in Italy for purposes of challenging a law’s constitutionality, is considered an extraordinary remedy because only other courts, and not individuals, are able to refer a case to the Constitutional Court. Therefore, this particular remedy was not directly accessible to individuals;463 the same is true for applications to the Ministry of Justice in Turkey for written orders to public prosecutors requiring them to ask the Court of Cassation to set aside judgments are considered extraordinary remedies.464 d) Special Circumstances The Court acknowledged in Akdıvar and Others v. Turkey that the existence of “special circumstances” may absolve an applicant from the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies.465 Such circumstances may exist, for example, in situations where the national authorities have remained totally passive in the face of serious allegations of misconduct by State agents, such as when State agents have failed to undertake investigations or offer assistance466 or where they have failed to execute a court order.467 Furthermore, in a case which concerned the destruction of the applicants’ property by the Turkish security forces, the Court found that the indifference displayed by the investigating authorities to the applicants’ complaints, coupled with the applicants’ feelings of upheaval and insecurity following the destruction of their homes, constituted special circumstances which absolved them from the obligation to exhaust domestic remedies.468 In several cases where the Court has found that the existence of special circumstances absolved the applicants from the exhaustion requirement, the Court has also stressed that its ruling was confined to the particular circumstances of those cases and was not to be interpreted as a general statement that remedies were ineffective in the respondent Contracting Party or that applicants were absolved from the obligation under Article 35 to have normal recourse to the system of remedies.469 Furthermore, according to the Court, it is only in exceptional circumstances that it could accept that applicants seek relief before the Court without first having made any attempt to seek redress before the local courts.470 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 130 Kutcherenko v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 41974/98, 4 May 1999. Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy [GC], no. 22774/93, 28 July 1999, § 42. Zarakolu v. Turkey (dec.), no. 37061/97, 5 December 2002. Akdıvar and Others v. Turkey, no. 21893/93, 16 September 1996. Selmouni v. France [GC], no. 25803/94, 28 July 1999, § 76. A.B. v. the Netherlands, no. 37328/97, 29 January 2002, §§ 69 and 73. Selçuk and Asker v. Turkey, nos. 23184/94 and 23185/94, 24 April 1998, §§ 70–71. Ibid., § 71. See also Akdıvar and Others v. Turkey, no. 21893/93, 16 September 1996, § 77. Akdıvar and Others v. Turkey, no. 21893/93, 16 September 1996, § 77.