Ankara suspects the judges and prosecutors held to support Fethullah Gülen, that the power accuses herself with the lacquered putsch of the summer of 2016.
Le Monde with AFP.
This is one of the many cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) from the Putsch missed in Turkey, in the summer of 2016. The Court sentenced Turkey Tuesday, November 23, For the “arbitrary” detention of 427 magistrates, five years after the massive purge in the administration, the army and the Turkish intellectual circles that followed the failed coup.
Seven European judges considered unanimously that Ankara had violated the “right to liberty” of these magistrates, guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights signed by the 47 Member States of the Council of the Council Europe, including Turkey.
These detentions, identified, have not been decided “in accordance with a procedure laid down in the law” and were not “strictly required by the requirements of the situation”. The ECHR recalled that “the legal safety requirements” are “even more important” with regard to the independence of magistrates, “taking into account the importance of the judiciary in a democratic state”. The Court sentenced Ankara to pay 5,000 euros to each of the interested parties for moral damage.
mass revocations
These judges and prosecutors, who exercised in many jurisdictions, including the Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court, had been arrested and placed in detention for “suspicion of belonging to the FETO”, details the ECHR in a statement . In the terminology of the Turkish authorities, Feto is the acronym that refers to the “terrorist organization of Fethullah partisans” Gülen, accused of having the attempt of putsch.
Tens of thousands of people had been arrested after the missed coup of July 15, 2016, in unprecedented purges against the presumed supporters of Fethullah Gülen, Black Beast, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but also against Kurdish opponents, military, intellectuals and journalists.
On this occasion, a decree had resulted in the revocation of 2,847 magistrates, suspected of belonging to the FETO, the power estimating this “incompatible with the principle of impartiality”, recalls the ECHR. In the following months, 1,393 other magistrates had still been revoked, still according to the Court.
“Tentative reversal”
Among the cases whose ECHR had been seized, the fate reserved by Turkish justice to the famous journalist and writer Ahmet Altan, founder of the Opposition Journal Taraf, had sparked an outcry abroad. Arrested in September 2016, he had been sentenced to a prison sentence for “attempt to overthrow the constitutional order”. Ahmet Altan was finally released on April 14, 2021 following a decision of the Turkish Court of Cassation, rendered in the aftermath of a judgment of the ECHR who condemned Ankara for his detention.
Other figures of Turkish companies have been maintained in detention, also suspected of having supported the attempt at coup, such as the businessman and philanthrope Osman Kavala, whose ECHR claimed In vain the “immediate release” in 2019. The Council of Europe threatened Ankara of sanctions, which could be adopted at its next session, from November 30 to December 2, if it is not released from here There.