Public institutions, local authorities, bar associations and civil society organisations constitute the links of the chain for women’s access to justice. All relevant actors should act with a sense of responsibility and in co-ordination to facilitate women’s access to justice.
Having this in mind, the European Union and the Council of Europe’s joint action on “Fostering women’s access to justice in Turkey” has continued organising multi-stakeholder meetings in provinces. The third meeting of this series was held in Nevşehir on 30 June 2022.
The meeting aimed to identify the main challenges faced by women in accessing justice and discuss possible solutions to eliminate the existing obstacles. Strengthening inter-institutional dialogue and creating local and sustainable support networks to respond the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged women were also among the aims of the meeting.
In his speech the Vice President of Nevsehir Bar Association, Atty. Metin Değirmenci expressed gratitude that they are one of the four pilot bar associations within the scope of the Action on Fostering Women's Access to Justice in Turkey. He continued by stating, “Although equality before the law is clearly stated in our Constitution, we are aware that women and men do not have equal conditions in practice. For this reason, lawyers alone will be sufficient to ensure women to enjoy equally their rights and we are aware of the importance of working in cooperation with you, valuable institutions and stakeholders, at the local level."
Participants at the meeting, among which were representatives of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, local bar associations, public institutions, civil society, and municipalities working in the field of women's rights, discussed the challenges experienced locally in women's access to justice and concrete actions that can be taken to overcome them. Consultations were also held on how to strengthen inter-agency co-operation and co-ordination to support women through their path to access to justice.
Pınar Başpınar, Head of Operations of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Ankara, underlined that the Action strives to enhance women’s access to legal aid services and increase the gender sensitivity of legal aid services to better respond to the needs of women, stating “Legal aid and assistance play a vital role in eliminating the obstacles faced by women in accessing justice and supporting women to exercise their rights as equal citizens. To that end, within the scope of the grant agreement signed between the Council of Europe and the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, legal aid services will be provided to women in at least 360 cases by legal aid lawyers, who had participated in the training programs”.
Prof. Dr. Gülriz Uygur from Ankara University Faculty of Law stated that "The main reason for emphasising the term of ‘women's access to justice’ is that gender inequality creates further disadvantages for women in accessing to justice. If we realise that this is a structural problem, we can then take effective and right steps towards improving women's access to justice." In this context, she shared examples of activities aiming to put into practice the basic principles of access to justice, which are equality, guaranteeing and protection of rights by the legal system, accessibility of judicial institutions, provision of remedies, quality of judicial services and accountability.
The first two meetings in the series were held in Ordu (18 May) and Muğla (14 June). The series will conclude with a final meeting in Diyarbakır in September. The meetings are being organised as a part of the action on “Fostering women's access to justice in Turkey”, implemented within the framework of the European Union and Council of Europe’s joint programme entitled "Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022".
