Regional round table meeting on “Emerging Issues in Individual Application to the Constitutional Court” was organized within the Joint Project on Supporting Individual Application to the Constitutional Court of Turkey on 23-24 October 2017 in Gaziantep in order to evaluate the problematic areas which are subjects of individual applications and directly related to instance courts/ courts of appeals.
The meeting was organized with the participation of the Presidents and Members of the Criminal Chambers of Gaziantep Court of Appeals and Chairs of Justice Commissions, Public Chief Prosecutors and Presidents of Bar Associations from affiliated provinces. Member, deputy secretary general and rapporteurs of the Constitutional Court (TCC) and experts including academics, judges, prosecutors and lawyers made presentations and contributed to the identification of problematic areas that are subjects of individual application to the Constitutional Court and to the solution of problems that result in violation judgments.
Michael Ingledow, Head of the Council of Europe Ankara Programme Office delivered an opening speech where he underlined that the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) system was premised on the principle of subsidiarity and the State Parties were the primary actors responsible for redressing the alleged violations. Ingledow remarked that the individual application system had been an essential feature of the Turkish system for the protection of human rights and the Council of Europe would continue its strong cooperation with Turkish authorities and support strengthening of the individual application system.
Murat Azaklı, Deputy Secretary General of the Constitutional Court made a general evaluation on individual application to the Constitutional Court and said that the number of pending files was nearly 38 thousand as of October, 2017, the most common applications filed to the Constitutional Court was related to the right to a fair trial and the most common violation judgments delivered was again related to this right. Azaklı added that majority of the files were related to the alleged violation of the right to person’s liberty and security within the context of custody and pretrial detention.
Hasan Tahsin Gökcan, Member of the Constitutional Court delivered the closing speech of the meeting and noted that first and second instance courts were the safeguards of the fundamental rights in the Constitution and the ECHR in practice, and both the TCC andthe European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had a subsidiary jurisdiction in this context.
Referring to the objectives of the regional round table meetings, Gökcan stated that the primary aim of these meetings was to minimize the violation of fundamental rights in the Turkish judiciary system, to raise awareness on individual application, to establish grounds for dialogue among judiciary bodies and to enable judges, prosecutors and lawyers to improve their knowledge on actual and legal problems of other parties and review of the judgment of the TCC by practitioners and academics.
Please click here for the meeting agenda.
