Project Description
Turkey has taken a set of important measures to strengthen the protection of human rights. It established a Human Rights Department within the Ministry of Justice and a Human Rights Compensation Commission. It introduced the possibility of an individual application before the Constitutional Court and an action plan on the prevention of violations of the European Convention Human Rights. Turkey has translated the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and made them available to the public on the website of the Ministry of Justice.
Description
* Establishment of a Human Rights Department within the Ministry of Justice
* Introduction of Individual Application before the Constitutional Court
* Action Plan on Prevention of Violations of the European Convention Human Rights
* Establishment of Human Rights Compensation Commission
* Translation of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and making them available to the public on the web-site of the Ministry of Justice.
Key results
* The ECtHR’s workload: By the end of 2014, the number of applications pending before the ECtHR was reduced by 45% compared to 31.12.2012. Furthermore, the number of applications communicated to our Government decreased to 200 in 2014 while it was 422 and 508 respectively in 2012 and 2013.
* With regard to the individual application to the Constitution Court, the ECtHR held in one of its judgment that a new, accessible and effective constitutional remedy was introduced into the Turkish legal system.
* The Human Rights Compensation Commission delivers averagely 174 decisions in a day.
* The High Council of Judges and Prosecutors takes into account the ECtHR judgments that refer to human rights violations relating to judicial decisions of judges and prosecutors with respect to their assessment and promotion.
* Translation into Turkish of ECtHR judgments is available on the official web-site of the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of Justice (INHAK) and in the HUDOC data-base.
Key lessons learnt
Developing and effectively implementing a comprehensive and multifaceted strategy on tackling human rights violations helped us to raise awareness of human rights and rule of law in the judiciary as well as in the society. Furthermore, thanks to the effective implementation of this strategy the number and the scope of the references to ECHR and ECtHR case-law in judicial decisions have increased considerably.
Other relevant information
In close cooperation with the European Union and the Council of Europe, projects aiming to raise awareness of Turkish judges and prosecutors on the ECtHR’s and international human rights standards have been implemented.
