TURKISH JUDGE URGES JUDICIARY TO TOE EUROPEAN COURT’S LINE

Today’s Zaman
March 16 2009
Turkey

The number of complaints filed from Turkey with the top European rights
court clearly shows that there hasn’t been a decrease in violations
of rights despite significant reforms and constitutional amendments
made in line with Ankara’s accession process to the European Union,
the judge representing Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights
has said.

According to IÅ~_ıl KarakaÅ~_ — deputy dean of the Ä°stanbul-based
Galatasaray University’s law faculty representing Turkey at the
European court since May 2008 — this situation could be changed
if the Turkish courts would more closely follow the case law of the
European Court of Human Rights, which gives priority to protection
of rights and freedoms in its rulings.

One of the most important reasons that we have not seen a decrease
in the number of violations of rights and freedoms in Turkey is a
"dissonance" between Turkish judicial bodies and the European court’s
rulings, KarakaÅ~_ said in an interview with the Anatolia news agency
in Strasbourg yesterday.

"The ECHR’s rulings interpret rights and freedoms and make an
assessment according to today’s conditions; in a sense, they embody
these rights and freedoms. This is what law is; it is abstract when you
make the law — implementation is determinative. The ECHR perpetuates
the European Convention on Human Rights in line with this [principle],"
KarakaÅ~_ said, noting that states party to the convention should
implement judicial texts in the same way.

"When we look into decisions and interpretations by law enforcers in
Turkey, we can’t distinctly see the ECHR’s case law. We see that our
judicial bodies interpret rights and freedoms in a narrower fashion
… We see that a basic point of disagreement emerges between the
ECHR and the Turkish judicial bodies," she explained.

Turkey is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, having
ratified it in 1954 as a member of the Council of Europe after the
convention was signed in 1950. The convention established the European
Court of Human Rights.

Although being one of the states which swiftly ratified the convention
at the time, today Turkey is listed as the second country after
Russia from which the most complaints have been received by the
Strasbourg court.

Turkey needs a new constitution for more effective resolution of
problems in the field of human rights, KarakaÅ~_ said.

"It shouldn’t have been forgotten that it is a coup d’état
constitution. Although there have been amendments to it concerning
democratization, there are elements within it which allow a closed
and conservative interpretation," she said, stressing that those
elements cannot be removed with "makeup."