ECtHR Rejects Application of Academics For Peace

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has rejected the application of Academics for Peace who were discharged through statutory decrees and claimed violation of their freedom of expression.

Asst. Prof. Dr Kerem Altıparmak interpreting the court's decision pointing to the State of Emergency Commission as a domestic legal remedy, said:

"The ECtHR acts against its own case law" and reminded that the State of Emergency Commission was only in charge of determining whether the discharge was in accordance with the law and not of examining the case in term of a violation of freedom of expression.

The application was lodged on June 15, 2017 by 54 academics who had signed the peace declaration, "We will not be a party to this crime".

Asst. Prof. Dr Kerem Altıparmak who prepared the application guide together with Prof. Dr. Yaman Akdeniz from Bilgi University Faculty of Law criticized the court's decision that this understanding of the ECtHR made an application impossible and said the following:

"Path to applying to ECtHR is blocked at this stage"

"We thought, since the applying to the State of Emergency Commission would not solve the issue regarding freedom of expression, this cannot be applied for the Academics for Peace, this issue should be examined separately and therefore prepared this [application] guide.

"As the commission was set up, it had rejected everybody's application earlier. We had hopes that they would examine the case in terms of this new argument [freedom of expression]. But now, we can say that the path of lodging an application to the ECtHR has been blocked, at least at this stage".

"State of Emergency Commission has not begun operating"

"Now we have to wait for the State of Emergency Commission. Following their decision, an application to an administrative court. If a very standard decision is made there, an application to the ECtHR can be considered.

"We don't have an idea how long this would take since the State of Emergency Commission has been receiving applications but has not started operating yet.

The Commission to Review the Actions Taken Under the State of Emergency

The Commission to Review the Actions Taken Under the State of Emergency was established through the Statutory Decree No. 685 dated January 23, 2017 in order to "assess and decide upon applications lodged against actions including expulsion from the profession, dissolution of respective organizations and institutions, termination of one's studentship and cancelling the ranks of retired personnel which have been taken directly on the basis of the provisions of Decree-laws, in the absence of any other administrative action, on the grounds of attachment to, or affiliation or connection with terrorist organizations".

The President of the Commission, Selahaddin Menteş that there were 101,304 applications lodged to the commission as of October 4, 2017. Menteş noted that they had referred the cases to rapporteurs for examination and that the final results would be received by November 2017.

* Click to view the Decree Law regulating the formation, duties, terms of office of the commission and the procedure for applications.

(TP/DG)