The Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates have endorsed a letter to the Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, expressing concern at the treatment of lawyers in the country and the continued detention of Judge Aydın Sefa, a judge for the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) who is in pre-trial detention in Turkey on coup charges,
The letter has been sent by the bars and law societies of Scotland, England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland.
It highlights the situation in Turkey since the failed coup in July last year, with some 4,000 judges and prosecutors dismissed, many lawyers arrested and detained, and the arrest of Judge Akay, a judge at the United Nations Mechanism for the Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.
“The most recent dismissal of 227 judges and prosecutors, as well as the continued detention of judge Akay, are developments that represent a worrying erosion of the principle of the separation of powers,” the letter states.
“We are greatly concerned about the negative effects that this has on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Turkey.”
March 16, 2017
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