Following the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal, the Court of Cassation also defied the Yalcinkaya ruling by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and upheld the convictions of the 12 lawyers, who were sentenced to over 80 years in prison in total. The lawyers are now to be imprisoned again to serve the remainder of their sentences.

Last week, lawyers were notified that the Court of Cassation’s 3rd Criminal Chamber upheld the convictions of twelve lawyers, who were sentenced to a total of more than 80 years in prison.

For nearly nine years, the Turkish Government has been cracking down on lawyers, particularly those with alleged links to the Gulen Movement or those who did not fully support Erdogan after the failed coup attempt. More than 1,700 lawyers have been prosecuted, with 700 lawyers remanded to pretrial detention. Thus far, at least 553 lawyers have been sentenced to a total of 3,380 years in prison. They were predominantly charged with membership in a terrorist organization.

Turkey: TALI and IBAHRI release report on the mass imprisonment of lawyers in Turkey

The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute and The Arrested Lawyers Initiative have released a detailed report highlighting the declining independence of the legal profession and bar associations in Turkey.…

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Persecution Begins in 2016

In the immediate aftermath of the state of emergency, Ankara police stormed the homes and offices of 52 lawyers. Stripped of their most basic rights, they were locked away in police custody for days, forbidden even the fundamental right to confer with their own counsel. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office showed not only a shocking contempt for the law, but also an unmistakable determination to destroy the very idea of legal defense. Too cowardly—or too complicit—to draft a lawful arrest warrant, the prosecutor shamelessly recycled one intended for military officers accused of plotting the coup. This was not a blunder; it was a calculated move to isolate the lawyers so that no bar association, no NGO, no colleague would dare to stand up in their defense. Their very first battle was against this grotesque charade of accusations.

The initial arrest warrants against these lawyers were a farce of monstrous proportions: murder, attempting to assassinate the President, raiding military bases, plotting to overthrow the government, dismantling the constitutional order.

A copy of order of the Ankara Prosecutor (above)

On the basis of this legal fiction—so absurd it bordered on the theatrical—they were thrown into pretrial detention, languishing for months under charges that everyone knew were false. (A copy of pretrial detention order of the Ankara Magistrate Judge: below)

When the weight of this absurdity became too heavy to sustain, the prosecutor did not relent—he recalibrated his persecution. The coup-related charges were quietly dropped, replaced instead with the familiar catch-all weapon of authoritarian regimes: branding the lawyers as “leaders or members of an armed terrorist organization.”

Ankara Heavy Penal Court

In March 2019, Ankara 22nd Heavy Penal Court sentenced 21 lawyers to some 150 years in prison. Lawyers who were detained on 3rd and 26th of August 2016, were convicted under Article 314§2 of the Turkish Penal Code which criminalizes membership to an armed terrorist organization. 

Regional Appeal Court

On December 27, 2023, the Ankara Regional Court of Appeals ruled on the appeals of lawyers who had previously been sentenced to between 6 and 9 years and who had served part of their sentences. The court dismissed the appeals and upheld the sentences, which totaled more than 125 years, with individual sentences ranging from six to eight years. The case was then referred to the Court of Cassation for final appeal consideration at the request of defendants.

Evidence Against These Lawyers

Evidence against the lawyers includes being members of the Lawyers’ Association, which was lawfully incorporated at the relevant time, the identities of their clients, use of the ByLock app, being customers of Bank Asya, the choice of private hospitals and hotels for treatment and accommodation, making donations to a specific relief organization which was honored by Parliament, and possession of certain books, among others. In fact, the alleged ‘criminal activities’ that have led to the conviction and imprisonment of many lawyers are such that, in any other jurisdiction, they would not constitute a crime and would likely be commended instead.

The indictment, prepared by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, accused these lawyers of being executive or ordinary members of Hukuk & Hayat (Law & Life), a lawyers’ association in Ankara that was shut down by decree-law during the state of emergency declared after the failed coup. The association, which provided professional training and social events, and offered assistance to trainees and junior lawyers, was charged with “membership of an armed terrorist organization” based on its members’ list obtained from the Governorship’s office. Notably, a police report concluded that the association committed no offence.

According to the indictment, the only evidence that Hukuk & Hayat was directly linked to the Gulen Movement was that it was shut down by a decree law. The court did not think it was necessary to look beyond that. The public prosecutor did not offer a shred of evidence as to how exactly such a professional organisation was being run by the Gulen Movement. The prosecutor seems to have an interesting approach when linking individual lawyers to the Gulen Movement. Sometimes the prosecutor uses the identity of a particular board member and his clients to link Hukuk & Hayat to the Gulen Movement. Then he links its ordinary and board members to the Movement and charges them with membership to an armed organisation.

Turkish Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights enshrine the freedom of association.  On the other hand, according to Articles 23-24 of the UN Basic Principles of the Role of Lawyers, lawyers are entitled to “freedom of association and assembly” and to “form and join self-governing professional associations to represent their interests, promote their continuing education and training and protect their professional integrity”. They shall have the right to join or form local, national or international organizations and attend their meetings, without suffering professional restrictions because of their lawful action or their membership in a lawful organization.

The lawyers have been identified with their clients

According to Article 18 of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, lawyers may not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes as a result of discharging their functions. Despite the clear prohibition to do so however prosecutor and the Ankara Appeal court have relied on such lawyers’ client lists. Having represented the individuals who are prosecuted under anti-terror laws or entities such as schools, associations or companies which were closed down or confiscated by decree-laws was held as incriminating evidence. 

Using a particular messaging app

Being allegedly Bylock users, which was an encrypted messaging app like WhatsApp and Signal, is also another decisive evidence against some of the lawyers. The lawyers during the entire prosecution challenged this evidence and asked for a digital copy of evidence against them as well as an expert panel examination to address the inconsistencies in the Bylock material, however, all of these requests were denied and the Court exclusively relied on police report stating that they are Bylock users.

Other Evidence

The other evidence included that the defendants, their spouses and fathers had bank accounts in Bank Asya, a bank which operated lawfully under the supervision of Turkey’s banking authority until it was confiscated by the state for its alleged links to the Gulen Movement was cited as evidence, the schools which the defendants’ children attended were cited as evidence, the hospitals they chose for treatment, the hotels they accommodated.

The court found that the defendant’s organizing their efforts to represent certain people during police interviews were criminal activity carried out to “show the state in a bad light” or “show that the investigations and criminal proceedings which followed were unlawful”. The evidence against every defendant includes a list of their clients. If any one of their clients was a person or a company allegedly associated with the Gulen Movement, it was used to convict them. For instance, the fact that the clients of a defendant included a teachers’ union which was closed down by a decree law was considered incriminating evidence.

But probably the most bizarre of them all is a law book which was found in the office of one of the lawyers.  The book was titled “Rights and Restrictions in Union Actions”. The book was seen as incriminating because it was published by a trade union that had been closed down by an emergency decree, even though the book was only about the provisions of the Turkish constitution on trade unions and freedom of assembly.

In fact, the so-called “criminal activities” that led to the conviction and imprisonment of so many lawyers are such that they would not only not constitute a crime in any jurisdiction, but would probably be praised. Yet this did not stop the Ankara Court of Appeal from sentencing them to more than 125 years in prison.

Total disregard for ECHR rulings

In justifying its decisions as described above, the court explicitly ignored the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), even though these rulings were repeatedly cited as precedents by the defendants’ lawyers.

Most importantly, the Ankara Regional Appeal Court ignored the ECHR Grand Chamber’s September 2023 judgment in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Turkey. In this judgment, the ECHR found that the conviction under Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code (membership of an armed terrorist organization) for using Bylock violated the principle of no punishment without law and the right to a fair trial. This conclusion is consistent with similar findings by the UN Human Rights Committee in the cases of İsmet Özçelik et al. (CCPR/C/125/D/2980/2017, 23 September 2019) and Mukadder Alakuş v. Turkey (CCPR/C/135/D/3736/2020, 26 July 2022). The ECHR ruled that this judgment applied to all cases involving Bylock allegations and therefore ordered Turkey to take general measures to prevent similar potential 100,000 applications. In the same judgment, the ECHR ruled that it’s a violation of freedom of association to use someone’s membership in associations or trade unions that were closed down by decrees issued during the 2016-2018 state of emergency. The Court held that membership in and activities of those associations and trade unions should be presumed to be lawful, as they were legally established at the material time. (Identical findings: Nazlı Ilıcak v Turkey (No. 2) App No. 1210/17, 14 December 2021; Taner Kılıç v Turkey App No. 208/18, 31 May 2022).

However, the Ankara Regional Appeal Court, in complete disregard of the facts and the law, stated: “Although some of the defendants and their legal counsels have claimed in their oral and written submissions that the judgment of the ECHR in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Turkey constitutes a precedent for them, there is no final judgment of the ECHR regarding the violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its additional protocols concerning the defendants. In light of the ECtHR judgment in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Turkey, … it has been concluded that the violations referred to in that judgment relate only to the finding of violations specific to the application in that particular case and that the violations of the principles of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR and the principles of legality in criminal matters and punishment under Article 7 ECHR referred to in the judgment are not applicable to the defendants”. (Ankara Regional Appeal Court’s 22nd Criminal Chamber, 27 December 2023)

Latest Development

Last week, lawyers were notified that the Court of Cassation’s 3rd Criminal Chamber upheld the convictions of twelve lawyers, who were sentenced to a total of more than 80 years in prison. At the same time, it overturned the acquittals of three lawyers and ordered their conviction. The Chamber also reversed the convictions of seven lawyers due to procedural errors committed by the lower court, instructing that these errors be corrected and new rulings issued. However, it is highly likely that these lawyers will be reconvicted once the procedural flaws are remedied.

Conclusion 

In light of the rulings by the Ankara Regional Appeal Court and the Court of Cassation, it is evident that the Turkish judiciary is displaying marked defiance in complying with the binding judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), particularly the Yalçınkaya judgment of the Grand Chamber. The Ankara Court of Appeal’s refusal to acknowledge the clear precedent established by the ECtHR is a deeply troubling sign of the erosion of judicial independence and respect for international law in Turkey. Even more alarming is that the Court of Cassation has endorsed this untenable interpretation of the Yalçınkaya Grand Chamber judgment by the lower courts.

This situation underscores the urgent need for the Council of Europe to adopt a firmer stance on the enforcement of ECtHR judgments in Turkey. The Council plays a crucial role in safeguarding human rights across its member states, and a more assertive approach is essential to ensure that these rights are not only formally recognized but effectively upheld. Without such enforcement, ECtHR judgments risk being reduced to mere symbolic gestures, devoid of any real impact on the protection and promotion of human rights within the jurisdiction of its member states.

From the very beginning, this was never about justice. It was about vengeance. It was about silencing the defenders so that no one else could be defended. It was persecution in its purest form—malicious, dishonest, and carried out with utter contempt for truth, for law, and for the very idea of justice itself.

Categories: Turkey Human Rights Blog, Unjust / Wrongful Convictions

Tags: AIHM, Ekrem Imamoglu, Yuksel Yalcinkaya