GÜLEÇ JUDGMENT OF 27 JULY 1998 34 and upheld on 13 November 1991 by the Supreme Administrative Court, on the ground that it had not been possible to identify those responsible, was not at all pertinent, since the complaint of 5 April 1991 had been lodged against Mustafa Karatan. The right to life was one of the most important Convention rights, and the Government had failed to fulfil its obligation to protect it by not bringing proceedings in the courts against the offender whenever anyone infringed it. (b) The Government 75. The Government replied that if there had been the slightest prima facie evidence, the Administrative Council would have decided to prosecute. In any event, the Regional Administrative Court, a judicial body which had a legal duty to review all discontinuation orders made by administrative councils, would have set aside the order and ordered the prosecution of the suspects. In the last two years administrative councils had brought criminal proceedings in 4,955 cases. During the same period, the Regional Administrative Courts and the Supreme Administrative Court, two courts composed of professional judges who could not be removed from office, had set aside no fewer than 439 discontinuation orders. As regards the lack of a public hearing during the review procedure, the Government submitted that, even if the law provided for a hearing, the court concerned would uphold the administrative council’s conclusion, since this reflected the truth as established on the basis of the evidence obtained during the investigation. In conclusion, it could not be argued that the right to life had been infringed because there were no remedies or because existing remedies were ineffective, unavailable and inaccessible. (c) The Commission 76. In the Commission’s view, the authorities responsible for the investigation lacked the requisite independence and impartiality. The two investigating officers appointed by the Provincial Governor, Celal Uymaz and Osman Kurt, were gendarmerie officers and the hierarchical superiors of the gendarmes whose conduct they had to investigate. As to the Administrative Council, it was composed of the District Commissioner and senior civil servants of the provincial administration, all under the orders of the Provincial Governor, who was in charge of the local gendarmerie. In the present case, there had been not only a lack of objective impartiality as defined in the Court’s case-law, but also of subjective impartiality. Certain phrases in investigating officer Kurt’s report, to the effect that the applicant had made “gratuitous and inopportune accusations against Major M. Karatan, who was simply obeying orders” and that “[t]he fact that the major has been made the target of the accusations …, reveals an