The head of Turkey’s national bar association on Tuesday warned that government authorities cannot choose whether to comply or not with rulings by the country’s Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), saying the courts’ decisions are legally binding, the Bold Medya news website reported.
Erinç Sağkan, president of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB), also criticized the use of pretrial detention, restrictions on freedom of expression and what he described as increasing political influence over perceptions of the judiciary. He made the comments at a ceremony in Ankara marking the opening of Turkey’s 2026-2027 judicial year.
“Justice does not come into being when a court ruling is issued, but when it is implemented,” Sağkan said.
He said compliance with Constitutional Court and ECtHR rulings is an obligation arising from Turkey’s constitution and international treaties and cannot vary according to political considerations or the outcome of a case. Failure to enforce binding judgments, he said, raises broader questions about the authority of the constitution.
Sağkan’s remarks come as Turkey faces renewed pressure over its compliance with European rights court judgments. On August 25 the ECtHR ordered the immediate release of imprisoned philanthropist and civil society figure Osman Kavala, ruling that Turkey had violated several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court said Kavala’s conviction should be considered null and void under the convention.
Kavala has been imprisoned since 2017 despite an earlier ECtHR ruling calling for his release. He was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment in 2022 over his alleged role in the 2013 Gezi Park protests and an attempted coup in 2016.
Sağkan also criticized what he said was the disproportionate use of pretrial detention and judicial supervision measures, which can include restrictions such as travel bans and a requirement to report regularly to authorities. He said such measures were in some cases being used without the conditions required by law and were taking on a punitive character before defendants had been convicted.
He also accused public authorities of violating the confidentiality of criminal investigations, saying the disclosure of information could undermine the presumption of innocence and publicly stigmatize suspects before their cases are decided. Such practices have contributed to distrust in the criminal justice system, he said.
On freedom of expression, Sağkan said some court practices involving offenses classified under the Turkish Penal Code as crimes against the public peace had restricted protected speech and fostered a perception that some opinions were permitted while others were not.
Sağkan also warned about the relationship between politics and the judiciary, saying political disputes were increasingly ending up in court and judicial proceedings were often discussed in terms of their political consequences rather than their legal reasoning.
That environment, he said, encourages people to question the political forces behind judicial decisions and creates a perception that the judiciary is being used as a political instrument.
