“The Family Council” Becomes An Excuse For Honor Killings Of Women

A member of the Supreme Curt of Appeals 1st Penal Chamber, announced that he would require there to be a “family council decision” in a murder with a motive of custom. Women lawyers say there is no such requirement in the law.

Tolga Korkut

Salih Zeki İskender, a member of the Supreme Curt of Appeals 1st Penal Chamber, announced that he would require there to be a “family council decision” in a murder with a motive of custom.

“There is no such requirement in the law”

Lawyer Nazan Moroğlu, with whom bianet met about this announcement, said that there was no such criterion in the Penal Code (TCK) and in fact there were no requirements for the murders with the motive of custom.

In the section “Crimes Against Life”, TCK describes “the motive of custom” as one of the qualified murder modes and the sentence for this mode is life in prison.

Moroğlu claims that the Supreme Court of Appeals has made an interpretation, even though there is no such requirement in the law.

Lawyer Fatma Benli from the Woman Against Discrimination Association (AKDER) too says the Supreme Court of Appeals behaves as a legislator organ with this interpretation and they should discard this interpretation.

She says that these types of murders are not always made with the decision of the family council, sometimes there are personal decisions behind them.

The real risk is that the courts may use this as precedent

Moroğlu says that one of the outcomes of this decision may be that the courts may adopt this approach in the cases regarding the honor killings of women. However, Turkey must follow the UN Convention on this matter. She says the Ministry of Justice should emphasize this convention more and in detail in training its judges.

TCK Women’s Platform had urged during the making of the law related to this matter that the phrase “with the motive of sexual honor” rather than the phrase “with the motive of custom” should have been used.

Moroğlu also adds that the women’s organization, the women professionals in the field of law and the bars should take this decision to their agendas and cause public pressure. She also mentioned that this decision would be in the agenda of the woman law committee of the Union of Bars in September.(TK/EZÖ/TB)