The regional meeting on the impact of the Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC) judgments on criminal, civil and administrative justice took place in Gaziantep on 28 and 29 March 2022 in the scope of the Supporting the Effective Implementation of Turkish Constitutional Court’s Judgments in the Field of Fundamental Rights Project. This high-level event brought the representatives of the TCC together with the members of the Court of Cassation (CoC), Council of State (CoS), regional court of justice and regional administrative court. Representatives of the Council of Europe from the Programme Office in Ankara, as well as from Strasbourg were present in the event. The two-day event enjoyed a good level of participation from members of the judiciary, hosting approximately 250 participants in total. The participants were civil, criminal and administrative court judges, as well as prosecutors from Gaziantep, Kahramanmaraş, Şanlıurfa, Adıyaman, Batman, Kilis, Malatya, Diyarbakır, Siirt, Mardin, Elazığ, as well as members, judges and rapporteurs of the Registry of the Turkish Constitutional Court.
The meeting was opened with the keynote speeches of Christophe POIREL (Director of Human Rights Directorate, Council of Europe), Yusuf KAYA (President of the Regional Court of Justice), Önder Kemal SEKÜCÜ (Chief Public Prosecutor of Gaziantep) and Zühtü ARSLAN (President of the Turkish Constitutional Court).
The first day of the meeting was dedicated to the TCC’s judgments’ impact on civil and criminal justice. With their presentations, the members of the CoC and the TCC Rapporteurs tackled the question from the perspective of objective and subjective impact of TCC’s judgments. Furthermore, retrials and reinvestigations initiated upon TCC judgments, and implementation related problems in civil and criminal justice together with recommendations on how to resolve them were discussed at length. In addition, the TCC’s relevant case law on the right to a fair trial, right to property, freedom of expression and prohibition of torture and ill treatment was introduced. The first day of the event was concluded with an interactive session where the participants’ questions were answered by the panel members.
The second day of the event focused on the impact of the TCC judgments on administrative justice. TCC rapporteurs explained the relevant case law on the right to a fair trial, the right to property, freedom of expression, and the right to respect for private and family life. The question of redress was further deliberated upon through discussions on the reopening of legal proceedings upon TCC violation judgments.
The Joint Project on “Supporting the Effective Implementation of Turkish Constitutional Court Judgments in the Field of Fundamental Rights” is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe. The Turkish Constitutional Court is the end beneficiary of the Project.
