Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the recording of prison visits and the uploading of inmate letters to the judiciary’s digital system violates inmates’ rights to privacy and freedom of communication, the Mezopotamya news agency reported.
The court delivered its latest ruling in the case of Ömer Coşkun, an inmate at Keskin T-Type Closed Prison, who filed a complaint in 2020 after his efforts to stop the practices were unsuccessful. Coşkun argued that recording conversations during prison visits and scanning and uploading personal letters to the National Judiciary Informatics System (UYAP) violated his constitutional rights.
The court found that these practices violated Articles 20 and 22 of the Turkish Constitution, which protect the right to privacy and freedom of communication, respectively. The ruling emphasized that the surveillance and data processing lacked a clear legal framework, making them susceptible to arbitrary implementation.
The court noted that current regulations only allow prison staff to observe visits in person and that there is no law permitting audio or video recording during these meetings. It also found that there are no clear regulations on how prisoners’ letters are processed or how their data is stored and accessed in the judiciary’s digital system, UYAP.
The court ruled that Coşkun’s privacy rights had been violated and ordered the state to pay him 30,000 Turkish lira ($925) in non-pecuniary damages. It also ordered that Coşkun’s civil case regarding the surveillance of prison visits be reheard, though it did not order new proceedings for the handling of letters.
The decision was unanimous, with Chief Justice Hasan Tahsin Gökcan and members Recai Akyel, Yusuf Şevki Hakyemez, Selahaddin Menteş and Yılmaz Akçil all supporting the ruling.
Despite similar rulings in recent years from both the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights, the practice of recording prison communications and uploading private correspondence continues in some Turkish prisons.
