The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled Tuesday that Turkey had violated the rights of four senior judges who were unable to challenge their early termination from their from their posts following a 2016 judicial restructuring.
In Kaya and Others v. Türkiye, the Strasbourg-based court examined complaints from judges who had served on the Supreme Court of Appeals and the Supreme Administrative Court before legislation adopted on July 1, 2016, reorganized the country’s highest courts and automatically ended the terms of all members as part of a broader reform of the judicial system.
The restructuring formed part of a major overhaul of the judiciary during a period of institutional changes in 2016, when authorities introduced a three-tier judicial system with regional appellate courts and reduced the number of chambers and judges in the two highest courts, requiring that new appointments be made.
The applicants argued that after their mandates were terminated and they were reassigned to other judicial posts, they had no effective legal procedure allowing them to contest the decision before domestic courts. They said the absence of judicial review violated Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial, including access to a court.
The Turkish government maintained that the measure was part of a wide-ranging reform aimed at strengthening the judicial system and argued that domestic remedies had not been fully exhausted. The European court rejected those objections, finding that the judges had been denied any meaningful opportunity to have their claims examined by a court.
The court concluded that the lack of a judicial mechanism to review the termination of the judges’ terms impaired the “very essence” of their right of access to a court and therefore constituted a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the convention.
The judges in Strasbourg ordered Turkey to pay each applicant 3,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages while dismissing claims for additional financial losses.
