Human Rights Litigation Support Group for Turkey
Middlesex Law School is launching a project aimed at providing support to lawyers and civil society organisations on the front line of defending human rights in Turkey.
Professor Philip Leach (Professor of Human Rights Law and EHRAC Director) will be leading a team of academics, human rights lawyers and researchers to create a support network and legal resources for Turkish litigators, as well as take strategic cases to international human rights courts to respond to the human rights crisis currently gripping Turkey. Basic human rights are being systematically violated and protections progressively eroded as human rights defenders are increasingly unable to operate within Turkey.
The project aims to make use of strategic litigation as a tool to counter these trends, and to provide much-needed support to lawyers and civil society groups within Turkey. The project will carry out a range of activities, supporting human rights lawyers and NGOs in Turkey in bringing cases before the European Court of Human Rights (and other international fora) and to make strategic interventions to expose, and seek to influence the deteriorating situation and the international response.
The project will work in partnership with bar associations, universities, local lawyer groups, national and international NGOs and victims’ associations, amongst others, to ensure a rich exchange of relevant knowledge, skills and resources to challenge violations by state officials.
Our objectives
- To provide support to and building legal capacity of domestic human rights advocates and groups to effectively utilise domestic and international remedies
- To provide advice and support to advocates on the ground
- To use national and international human rights mechanisms to improve access to and obtain justice
- To ensure greater international and regional awareness of the current situation.
Our partners
The project aims to work in partnership with bar associations, universities, local lawyer groups, national and international NGOs, victims associations and other stakeholders ensuring the exchange of relevant knowledge and practices to challenge violations by state officials.
Publications
- State of Emergency in Turkey; A Collection of Available Resources, Reports, Case Law, and other Relevant Materials (August 2018)
- Expert Opinion on Ayse Celik Case Concerning Freedom of Expression; Turkish Human Rights Litigation Support Project Expert Opinion, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Turkey (2018). Turkish Human Rights Litigation Support Project team drafted an expert opinion which has been submitted to the Turkish Constitutional Court in an application concerning the right to freedom of expression of Ayse Celik, a teacher sentenced to imprisonment for a statement she made on a TV programme.
- In the expert opinion, the team examines international law standards relevant to the criminalisation and prosecution of crimes of expression, sets out relevant European and international legal standards governing freedom of expression and the exceptional circumstances in which restrictions of free expression may be justified, and highlights certain features of the crime of propagandising for a terrorist organisation under Article 7(2) of the Anti-Terror Law of Turkey. The expert opinion aims to assist the Constitutional Court in its evaluation of consistency of the lower court’s decision with the international human rights obligations of the Turkish State and generally accepted principles of criminal law. The expert opinion is available both in English and Turkish .