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Majority in Turkey doesn’t trust judicial system: survey

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Over 67 percent of people in Turkey have said they don’t trust the country’s judicial system, according to the results of a recent survey conducted by ASAL Research, local media reported over the weekend.

In the “Turkey Political Agenda April 2024” survey, which was conducted on 2,000 people in 26 provinces across the country, the respondents were asked, “Do you have confidence in the judicial system in Turkey?”

While 67.7 percent of participants said they don’t trust Turkey’s judicial system, 24.5 percent said they do. The remaining 7.8 percent of respondents had no opinion.

 

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.

A February report titled “A Profession on Trial: The Systematic Crackdown Against Lawyers in Turkey,” drafted jointly by the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) and The Arrested Lawyers Initiative (TALI), revealed 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 for their legitimate work.

According to the report more than 1,700 lawyers have been prosecuted, with 700 of them put in pretrial detention since a 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.

Turkey disbarred more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors immediately after the abortive putsch over alleged ties to the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by the teachings of Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen that focuses on science education, volunteerism, community involvement, social work and interfaith and intercultural dialogue.

Erdoğan and his AKP government label the movement as a terrorist organization and accuse them of orchestrating the attempted coup, while the group strongly denies any involvement in the coup bid or any terrorist activities.

The mass disbarment of members of the judiciary is believed by many to have had a chilling effect on the entire justice system, intimidating the remaining judges and prosecutors into doing the government’s bidding by launching politically motivated investigations into critics.

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