The European Parliament today, 17 June 2026, formally adopted its resolution on the 2025 Commission report on Türkiye, based on the report prepared by the Committee on Foreign Affairs (rapporteur Nacho Sánchez Amor, A10-0106/2026). The adopted text delivers one of the most forceful parliamentary indictments to date of the Turkish judiciary’s role in dismantling the rule of law — with explicit, repeated condemnation of attacks on lawyers, the systemic weaponisation of the courts, and the promotion of former Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Akın Gürlek to Minister of Justice. The resolution also addresses Türkiye’s continued defiance of the European Court of Human Rights — including the Yalçınkaya ruling and the Court’s own departure from past practice on compensating applicants — alongside transnational repression, enforced disappearances, entrenched corruption, and what Parliament repeatedly characterises as Türkiye’s consolidation into a fully authoritarian system. The Arrested Lawyers Initiative sets out below, in full, what the final adopted resolution says on each of these fronts.

Attacks on Lawyers: “An Unacceptable Interference with the Right to Defence”

Paragraph 15 of the resolution is devoted entirely to the persecution of defence lawyers in Türkiye — a central and recurring concern for the Arrested Lawyers Initiative since its founding. Parliament condemns the harassment and attacks on defence lawyers on account of their professional activities, citing by name two cases that have drawn international condemnation: the continued imprisonment of Mehmet Pehlivan, lawyer of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, and the recent sentencing to 11 years in prison of Ramazan Demir, lawyer of former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş.

While the resolution welcomes the acquittal, by the 26th Istanbul Heavy Penal Court, of the president and ten members of the executive board of the Istanbul Bar Association on terrorism-related charges, Parliament stresses pointedly that “this criminal case should not have happened in the first place.” The text calls on the Turkish authorities to implement safeguards for the independence, safety and autonomy of lawyers, and to ensure that legal professionals and their professional bodies are not subjected to prosecution or other improper pressure solely for carrying out their lawful functions — in line with Council of Europe standards.

This concern for the legal profession is echoed elsewhere in the resolution. Paragraph 25, addressing the ‘Terror-free Türkiye’ initiative, lists among its “contradictory and worrying signs” the new convictions of Selahattin Demirtaş and of his lawyer Ramazan Demir, treating the prosecution of defence counsel as symptomatic of the wider failure of reform. Paragraph 17 further records that large numbers of individuals — including members of bar associations — have been detained or subjected to judicial control measures for their professional or associational activity, particularly in connection with demonstrations following İmamoğlu’s arrest.

A Judiciary “Weaponised” to Suppress Dissent

The resolution’s broader diagnosis is unambiguous. Recital F finds that Türkiye has “systematically instrumentalised criminal law and counterterrorism laws to crack down on elected officials, opposition politicians and human rights defenders.” Paragraph 9 goes further, identifying the institutional mechanism: the Turkish Council of Judges and Prosecutors (CJP) and its lack of independence from government in the selection, recruitment and promotion of judges and prosecutors.

In the same paragraph, MEPs deplore the use of secret-witness evidence accepted without verification, a practice they find runs contrary to ECtHR case-law and constitutes “a clear violation of the right to a fair trial.” They further condemn the arbitrary removal and displacement of judges handling politically sensitive cases, and express alarm at a “severe deterioration in the quality of judicial proceedings,” particularly visible in the low quality of indictments. The resolution is equally blunt about double standards in the courts: it notes that “government supporters are not treated in the same way as opposition members.”

Growing Constitutional Crisis

Paragraph 11 extends this finding into what Parliament calls a “growing constitutional crisis,” caused by the refusal of ordinary courts to comply with binding Constitutional Court judgments —

Examples cited include the continued detention of Gezi case defendant Can Atalay despite two binding Constitutional Court decisions and the unlawful stripping of his parliamentary mandate; the Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court’s rejection of a Constitutional Court–ordered retrial for fellow Gezi defendant Tayfun Kahraman, whose health has seriously deteriorated; the conviction of talent manager Ayşe Barım over the 2013 Gezi protests despite an absence of evidence; and the Ankara Regional Administrative Court’s refusal to comply with a Council of State ruling ordering the reinstatement of ‘peace academic’ Hafize Öztürk Türkmen to his university post.

Paragraph 12 applies this same framework of judicial weaponisation to the ruling political opposition itself, condemning “the Turkish Government’s relentless targeting of political parties and members of the opposition,” most severely in the case of the CHP. The resolution strongly condemns the politically engineered removal from office of elected CHP Chairperson Özgür Özel and party leadership, following the Ankara Regional Court of Appeals’ 21 May 2026 ruling of ‘absolute nullity’ annulling the party’s 2023 congress and reinstating former chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Parliament considers this “the latest example of a broader pattern of repression against the opposition, involving the weaponisation of the judicial system with the aim of eliminating potential competitors in future elections.”

Paragraph 13 connects this institutional pattern directly to the case of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, describing a case now affecting more than 400 defendants — 105 of them in pre-trial detention — and rejecting as “a flagrant example of state interference in the internal matters of the biggest opposition party” the same 21 May court ruling addressed in Paragraph 12. The same paragraph notes the arrest, on 4 April 2026, of opposition mayor Mustafa Bozbey, and records that the European Court of Human Rights has accepted İmamoğlu’s application concerning his detention under its ‘priority case’ procedure.

Paragraph 14 extends the weaponisation finding to local government as a whole, strongly condemning the dismissal and arrest of at least 39 elected opposition mayors since the March 2024 local elections — 29 from the CHP and 10 from the DEM Party — and the replacement of 13 of them with government-appointed trustees, calling the trustee practice “a blatant attack on the most basic principles of local democracy.”

Akın Gürlek: “Always a Political Actor Following a Political Agenda”

The resolution singles out Akın Gürlek by name as emblematic of judicial capture. Paragraph 13 recalls that, as Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor, Gürlek was responsible for the nearly 4,000-page indictment against Mayor İmamoğlu — accusing him of leading a vast criminal network and committing 142 offences carrying a potential sentence of up to 2,430 years in prison.

Addressing his subsequent elevation to government, Paragraph 22 states Parliament is “appalled by his recent promotion to Minister of Justice,”

In the same paragraph, MEPs reiterate their call on the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative (VP/HR) to consider restrictive measures under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, including the freezing of assets in the EU, against Turkish officials responsible for serious and deliberate human rights violations. The paragraph explicitly names “former Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Akın Gürlek” as one such “key actor in the state’s repressive machinery,” placing him in the same category as officials who serve as government-appointed trustees over elected institutions and those who appoint them.

Parliament’s language leaves little ambiguity about how it views the trajectory of Gürlek’s career: from chief prosecutor overseeing the most politically consequential indictment of the past year, to Minister of Justice — a promotion the resolution treats not as a personnel decision but as further evidence of the politicisation it documents throughout the text.

Defiance of the ECtHR: Yalçınkaya and the Compensation Question

The resolution devotes sustained attention to Türkiye’s record before the European Court of Human Rights, which Parliament situates within historic infringement proceedings by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers (Recital J). As of January 2026, Türkiye held the highest number of pending cases of any state before the ECtHR, accounting for over a third of the Court’s total case list.

Paragraph 10 urges Türkiye “once again to fully implement all judgments of the ECtHR in line with Article 46 of the ECHR and in line with the unconditional obligations derived from Article 90 of the Turkish Constitution, including the ECtHR’s 2023 ruling in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v Türkiye and related cases.” The Grand Chamber judgment in Yalçınkaya found violations arising from the use of the ByLock messaging application as essentially automatic proof of membership in a terrorist organisation — the evidentiary mechanism underlying tens of thousands of post-2016 prosecutions. The resolution treats Türkiye’s continued non-implementation of this ruling as a paradigmatic case of the wider pattern of defiance it documents.

On the consequences of that non-implementation for the many thousands of people affected, Parliament raises a specific and unusual concern. Paragraph 10 takes note of the ECtHR decision not to award compensation or cover legal costs in the thousands of follow-up cases, a practice Parliament itself describes as “potentially unfair to applicants and inconsistent with prior practice of the court.”

For the many applicants whose cases follow the Yalçınkaya line of jurisprudence, this means that even where a violation is formally established, the Court’s standard remedy of just satisfaction — compensation for damages and reimbursement of legal costs — has not followed in the same way it has in comparable cases in the past. Parliament’s own characterisation of this as a departure from prior practice underscores the scale of the underlying caseload and the practical, financial burden it places on individual applicants and their legal representatives, even after a finding in their favour.

Paragraph 10 also condemns, “in the strongest possible terms,” Türkiye’s sustained and deliberate decision to keep imprisoned, on political grounds, former HDP co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ — for more than nine years — and human rights defender Osman Kavala — for more than eight years — despite the relevant ECtHR rulings calling for their release. It records that Demirtaş instead received, on 6 January 2026, an additional prison sentence of more than one year over speeches from 2015, despite three landmark ECtHR rulings calling for his release, the most recent of which became final on 3 November 2025. Parliament calls this “a grave abuse of power and a display of flagrant contempt for the rule of law.”

Transnational Repression

Paragraph 23 addresses Türkiye’s conduct beyond its own borders, condemning “reported cases of transnational repression targeting Turkish nationals abroad, including intimidation, forced returns and misuse of international cooperation mechanisms.” The resolution further condemns activities it finds have undermined European social cohesion, security and democratic processes, including interference in Member States’ internal affairs through diaspora communities and the use of the state news agency Anadolu “as an organ of propaganda.”

The same paragraph expresses concern that the Ülkü Ocakları (“Grey Wolves”), a movement Parliament describes as racist and extremist and closely linked to the ruling coalition’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), is “spreading not only in Türkiye but also in EU Member States,” and calls on the EU and Member States to examine the possibility of banning their associations in EU countries. Parliament also condemns the Turkish authorities’ political, financial, media and logistical support for Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated movements, networks, associations, charities and educational bodies operating in EU Member States and the EU’s neighbourhood, which it finds enables “ideological influence, funding and recruitment,” and calls on Türkiye to end all such support.

Enforced Disappearances

Paragraph 24, in the course of addressing prison conditions, records that Parliament is “worried by reports by local human rights organisations warning of a renewed rise in enforced disappearances since 2016.” This concern is reinforced in Paragraph 26, which calls on the Turkish authorities to establish an institutional framework, as an integral part of any lasting peace process, “to address enforced disappearances, forced displacement and other grave human rights violations stemming from decades of conflict around the Kurdish issue,” and urges the establishment of pluralistic monitoring mechanisms with the meaningful inclusion of human rights organisations and civil society.

Corruption and GRECO Non-Compliance

Recital N records that, according to Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, Türkiye scored 31 out of 100 — down from 50 out of 100 in 2013, its lowest mark to date — placing the country 124th out of 180 countries. The same recital notes that “more than nine years after the adoption of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption’s (GRECO) Fourth Round Evaluation Report on Türkiye, only 3 out of 22 recommendations contained in the report have been implemented in full.”

Paragraph 31 calls on the Turkish authorities to implement Türkiye’s international anti-corruption obligations, including under the UN Convention Against Corruption, and to ensure effective responses to GRECO’s recommendations, noting that the necessary legislation remains “one of the remaining benchmarks for visa liberalisation.” The resolution highlights the particular vulnerability to corruption of public procurement, political party financing, the judiciary, public administration and the construction sector. It also records that Parliament “deeply regrets that the recent high-level corruption cases launched by the authorities have exclusively targeted opposition mayors and municipalities,” finding that this selectivity “further diminish[es] trust in the effectiveness and real will of the authorities in the fight against corruption.” Parliament urges impartiality and transparency in anti-corruption efforts going forward.

The Broader Verdict: Authoritarianism

Across these specific findings, the resolution repeatedly frames its conclusions in terms of a deliberate shift toward authoritarian governance, rather than isolated institutional failures. Recital C records that the Commission’s own 2025 progress report identified “serious backsliding in the rule of law and a deteriorating human rights situation in Türkiye,” with the Commission “raising questions about adherence to basic democratic principles” compared to the previous reporting period.

Paragraph 3 goes further, finding that the persistence of unaddressed shortcomings, “in continuation of the trend that has pushed the country towards an authoritarian model over the past decade,” is “a clear indication of the Turkish Government’s lack of genuine political will for reform.” Paragraph 12 likewise describes the treatment of the CHP as moving Türkiye “yet further away from already limited party competition toward fully authoritarian rule,” and characterises the weaponisation of the judicial system as aimed at “further entrenching Türkiye in a fully authoritarian system.”

Parliament also records, in Recital K, that Freedom House classifies Türkiye as “not free,” and that the country has experienced “one of the worst declines in the level of freedom in the world in the past 11 years.” The 2025 World Press Freedom Index places Türkiye 159th out of 180 countries, with the report cited as finding that “authoritarianism is gaining ground in Türkiye.” Taken together, the resolution’s sections on the judiciary, lawyers, Gürlek, the CHP, mayors, and civil society are presented not as separate dossiers but as component parts of a single, deliberate consolidation of power — the underlying finding that, in Parliament’s words, Türkiye’s EU accession process “cannot be resumed” absent a genuine change of course (Paragraph 1).

Source: European Parliament resolution of 17 June 2026 on the 2025 Commission report on Türkiye (2025/2256(INI)), P10_TA(2026)0215, based on the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (A10-0106/2026, rapporteur Nacho Sánchez Amor).

Categories: Turkey Human Rights Blog