Turkish independent lawmaker Mehmet Yeneroğlu has accused Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç of misleading the public by misrepresenting Turkey’s rate of compliance with judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Bianet news website reported.
Tunç recently claimed that Turkey complies with 91 percent of the European rights court’s rulings. But according to Yeneroğlu, the more crucial indicator is a country’s record on “leading cases” since these expose structural or systemic problems that require legislative or judicial reform.
The ECtHR defines leading cases as those that reveal important issues in national law or practice, often requiring governments to introduce reforms or new safeguards to prevent similar violations.
In a parliamentary question to Minister Tunç, Yeneroğlu said Turkey has implemented only 68 percent of rulings in leading cases, 13 points below the European average, placing the country 39th among the Council of Europe’s 47 member states, citing official data.
Despite a seemingly high overall compliance rate of around 90 percent, Turkey still has 448 unimplemented judgments, while Belgium, which has a similar rate, has only 25.
The lawmaker also asked Tunç when the government plans to implement landmark judgments such as Demirtaş, Kavala, Yalçınkaya and Demirhan, which address systemic rights violations.
Turkey is the leading country in the number of cases pending before the ECtHR, with 21,800 applications awaiting judgment, representing 34.7 percent of the total, according to recent court data.
Rights advocates say the data reflect the fragile state of Turkey’s legal system after years of escalating repression, institutional erosion and politically motivated prosecutions under the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
