The European Union-Council of Europe Joint Project on “Supporting the Effective Implementation of Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC) Judgments in the Field of Fundamental Rights” held a study visit on 16-17 December to Venice, Italy.
The visit brought together high-level representatives of the TCC, composed of the President, Vice-President, chief rapporteurs and rapporteurs with their counterparts from the Constitutional Court of Italy, former ECtHR judges, judges from high courts, professors and experts of constitutional law from Italy, Germany, Spain and Northern Macedonia. Discussions took place on case-law developments, consistency between the standards applied by these courts with the ones developed and promoted by the ECtHR, the tendencies regarding new cases brought before these courts and the role of the Venice Commission in development of the constitutional protection of human rights
The first day of the meeting started with the keynote speech of the President of the TCC, Zühtü Arslan. His speech emphasized the core role of his court in the protection of constitutional values, most notably basic rights and liberties of individuals. His speech was followed by a presentation by Prof. Francesco Vigano, Justice of the Constitutional Court of Italy, on the functioning and organization of the Court as well some of its most important leading case-law on various areas including legality in criminal matters and freedom of expression.
Prof. Dr. Engin Yıldırım, Justice of TCC, made a presentation on the work and experience of the TCC in the context of the protection of fundamental rights. His presentation provided valuable information on the aforementioned topics, and statistics on the cases pending before the TCC. The session continued with the presentations of the Italian and German experts focusing on diverse topics such as the relationship between economic freedoms and constitutional rights, and the protection of fundamental rights with concrete examples from the case-law of both countries
On the second day, experts from Italy, Northern Macedonia and Spain presented the role of the Constitutional Courts of their respective countries and provided information on various rights and freedoms for which the courts frequently find violations. The day ended with a comprehensive presentation delivered by the Chief Rapporteur of the TCC, on the structure and functioning of the court, including information on the admissibility criteria, concepts of being manifestly ill-founded, unsubstantiated complaints, examination on the merits, within the context of individual application and Court’s efforts to implement Council of Europe standards.
In the framework of the visit, the Turkish delegation attended a dinner organsied by the Venice Commission on 16th of December and the Plenary Session of the Venice Commission on 17th December during which the TCC President Zühtü Arslan delivered a speech and answered questions asked by the experts of the Venice Comission.
The visit was assessed as extremely beneficial and fruitful by the visiting delegation and the foreign judges and experts attending the event. It was also covered by national media (see news item links below).
The Joint Project on “Supporting the Effective Implementation of Turkish Constitutional Court Judgments in the Field of Fundamental Rights” is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe. The Turkish Constitutional Court is the end beneficiary of the Project.
https://www.birgun.net/haber/aym-baskani-arslan-mahkemeleri-uyardi-aym-kararlarini-takip-edin-413892
