‘Turkey Must Restore Judicial Independence, Stop Targeting Rights Defenders’

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović has published a report on the state of rights and freedoms in Turkey based on his visit to the country from July 1 to July 5, 2019.

In her report published yesterday (February 19), Mijatović has called on the authorities in Turkey to "restore judicial independence and stop the practice of targeting human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists and silencing them by using administrative and judicial actions."

Underlining that "the measures that the authorities took in the aftermath of the state of emergency had devastating consequences on judicial independence and impartiality and threaten the rule of law and human rights in Turkey", the Commissioner has emphasized that "numerous long-standing problems, such as the misuse of detentions on remand, have been exacerbated and compounded by new shortcomings."

"The Commissioner is alarmed by the fact that the Turkish judiciary displays, especially in terrorism-related cases, unprecedented levels of disregard for even the most basic principles of law, such as presumption of innocence, no punishment without crime and non-retroactivity of offences, or not being judged for the same facts again", the report has read further.

'Developments jeopardizing the effectiveness of Constitutional Court'

Commenting on the effectiveness of the Constitutional Court as a remedy, the report has shared the following evaluations and comments by Mijatović:

"She also raises concerns about recent developments jeopardising the effectiveness of individual applications to the Constitutional Court as a domestic remedy for human rights violations, mainly because of a systematic resistance by prosecutors and lower courts to comply with the spirit of the judgments and the clear case-law of the Constitutional Court."

'Hostile environment against civil society and human rights defenders'

Emphasizing the importance of civil society organisations and human rights defenders in a democratic society, Commissioner Mijatović has also expressed her alarm "by the hostile environment against them and by a virulent and negative political discourse that frequently leads to biased actions by administrative authorities and the judiciary, and calls on the authorities to address this problem."

The Commissioner has also called on "the Turkish authorities, as a first step, to revert to the situation before the state of emergency, in terms of constitutional and structural guarantees for the independence of judges, as well as procedural fair-trial guarantees, and then to reinforce them progressively." (EKN/SD)

* Click here to read the full report