The award of compensation for persons subjected to “erroneous or unjust imposition of protective measures” has been a key commitment of Turkey’s new Action Plan on Human Rights announced in March 2021.
To support anticipated reforms and ensure a better protection of the right to liberty and security, the Council of Europe, in co-operation with the Ministry of Justice of Turkey, gathered close to 100 legal professionals for a roundtable on 1-2 October 2021 in Istanbul to analyse and put forward practical policy recommendations. The meeting was held in a hybrid format to ensure the online participation of invitees.
A series of interactive presentations by the Turkish Court of Cassation, the Constitutional Court and the Court of Appeals of Istanbul contributed to a rich exchange of perspectives on compensation mechanisms currently available in Turkey, particularly under Article 141 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The discussions were also supported by contributions of senior Turkish academics in the field (Prof. Feridun Yenisey), along with a review of relevant European case-law (ECtHR Lawyer Sanem Gurus-Tanyar), and an analysis of the functioning of compensation in other European countries by practitioners from Denmark (Special Prosecutor Henning Fuglsang Sørensen) and France (Judge Nicole Cochet).
The event is the fourth in a series of roundtable discussions centred around the right to liberty and security, which were organised within the scope of the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.
