A report drafted by two international judicial advocacy groups has revealed the increasing pressure, acts of legal harassment and widespread crackdown on lawyers in Turkey following a coup attempt in 2016 for engaging in the legal profession and how their independence has declined over time.
The 19-page report, drafted jointly by the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) and The Arrested Lawyers Initiative (TALI), was released on Wednesday.
Titled “A Profession on Trial: The Systematic Crackdown Against Lawyers in Turkey,” the report reveals how legal professionals are targeted through unfair trials, arbitrary detainment, imprisonment and harassment in Turkey and how the country’s counterterrorism legislation is misused to prosecute lawyers due to their legitimate work.
According to the report more than 1,700 lawyers have been prosecuted, with 700 of them been placed in pretrial detention since the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016, following which the Turkish government launched a massive crackdown on non-loyalist citizens under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
Among these lawyers, at least 553 have been sentenced to a total of 3,380 years in prison mainly on terrorism charges such as membership in a terrorist organization and disseminating terrorist propaganda under Turkey’s penal code and counterterrorism law, which are criticized for their broad definition of terrorism.
The report says the lawyers have mostly faced these charges due to their association with their clients. IBAHRI and TALI executives have called on Turkish authorities to guarantee the independence of Turkey’s judiciary and legal profession and to amend domestic counterterrorism laws to ensure that they are in line with regional and international principles.
TALI director Ali Yıldız complained that the Turkish authorities continue to associate lawyers with their clients and consequently punish them for engaging in their profession.
“Many lawyers remain in prison on the same grounds. We ask the Turkish authorities to end the unlawful imprisonment of our fellow lawyers,” he said.
IBAHRI Co-chair Mark Stephens CBE called on the Turkish authorities to halt the targeting of law professionals as they undertake their professional duties while explaining the risks of the government’s undue influence on legal professionals, which he said poses a grave threat to checks and balances and accountability and diminishes public trust in institutions and the justice system in addition to endangering the role of bar associations as defenders of justice.
“Furthermore, such interference, coupled with the misuse of legal instruments, erodes the rule of law, increases the risk of corruption within the judiciary and undermines democratic principles,” he added.
Turkish judicial officials frequently face allegations of corruption and bribery as well as widespread criticism for their perceived lack of independence under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
Erdoğan is accused of exerting absolute control over the judiciary thanks to vast powers granted to him by a presidential system of governance.
IBAHRI co-chair and a former secretary-general of the Swedish Bar Association Anne Ramberg said the judiciary and the prosecution in Turkey have become central figures in the mass incarceration of lawyers and the criminalization of lawyers’ professional duties. She said instead of upholding justice, the judiciary and the prosecution have played a disconcerting role in the imprisonment of 553 lawyers and the undermining of the rule of law.
“The IBAHRI is dedicated to supporting initiatives to promote justice, equality and the protection of human rights and calls on Turkey to meet its international obligations,” she said.
Many say there is no longer a separation of powers in the country and that members of the judiciary are under the absolute control of the government and cannot make judgments based on law.
Turkey was ranked 117th among 142 countries in the rule of law index published by the World Justice Project (WJP) in October, in a sign of the deteriorating rule of law in the country.
