These developments should be registered as concrete evidence for the elimination of the right to a defense to a great extent. A significant proportion of the lawyers who the bar associations are legally required to appoint are withdrawn, leaving defendants without representation in trials. This move is attributable partly to ideological barriers and partly to pressure.
According to the new changes, there is no longer privacy during meetings between lawyers and their clients. The authorities are allowed to record the meetings and ensure that an official attends them. Limitations on meeting times and periods have been introduced. The authorities have been permitted to block any exchange of documents and seize them. The authorities may prohibit prisoners from meeting with the lawyers they choose. Lawyers who are being investigated or prosecuted may be banned from defending their clients.
Not only has it become easier to launch investigations into lawyers, but the legal provisions that equip lawyers with immunity are also not being implemented. Thus, a lawyer is deprived of his/her right to offer legal counsel by launching a contrived investigation into him/her. Legal provisions have been introduced to facilitate the way the police can raid the offices of lawyers and take them into custody.
Defense counsels are no longer allowed to examine case files and retrieve copies of them. A person in custody can be prevented from seeing his/her lawyer for five days. When arrested, a person can be prohibited from seeing his/her lawyer for six months. Moreover, he or she can also banned from hiring their lawyer of choice by the authorities. Thus, the freedom of suspects/inmates to choose their lawyers is restricted.
The pressure on and intimidation campaign against lawyers have been also on the agenda of international professional organizations that are mobilized to issue statements of concern and Letters calling on the Turkish government to halt the crackdown on lawyers and release jailed lawyers. In a memorandum published in October 2016, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muiznieks condemned the drastic restrictions on access to lawyers as well as limitations on the confidentiality of the client-attorney relationship.
4.Bölüm: sığınma hakkı sırasında yaşanılan ihlallerle ilgili olduğu için konumuz dışındadır
CATEGORY V – The individual has been deprived of his or her liberty for reasons of discrimination based on birth; national, ethnic or social origin; language; religion; economic condition; political or other opinion; gender; sexual orientation; or disability or other status which aims towards or can result in ignoring the equality of human rights?
