• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, March 20, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

European Court Rejects To Hear Case of Turkey Purge Victim

Abdullah Ayasun by Abdullah Ayasun
06/12/17
in Featured, World
European Court Rejects To Hear Case of Turkey Purge Victim
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

In a decision that concerns more than 150,000 people who were dismissed by government decrees in Turkey, Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rejected an application by a Turkish teacher on the ground that he failed to exhaust all domestic remedies.

The court unanimously declared “the application inadmissible.” The decision is final, it said in a statement released on Monday.

Gokhan Koksal, a primary school teacher in the eastern province of Erzurum was sacked by the government on Sept. 1, 2016. He lodged his application to the court on Nov. 4.

The court dismissed the application on the ground that Mr. Koksal has yet to exhaust all domestic remedies provided by the government, citing Legislative Decree No: 685. The decree proposed setup of a commission tasked with overseeing applications by public workers for reconsideration of their dismissals and reinstatement of their rights.

After months of wrangling, the government finally named 7 members of the commission in May. But the commission has yet to become fully operational, and when it will begin to oversee applications of the purged officials remains to be seen.

Using the state of emergency measures, the Turkish government has sacked over 150,000 public officials since the failed coup.

Purged Turks Feel Betrayed

For victims of Turkey purge, the ECtHR’s decision that Mr. Koksal first has to appeal to the commission was shocking and disappointing.

“Koksal v. Turkey will be remembered as one of the worst decisions of the ECtHR,” tweeted Kerem Altiparmak, a human rights law expert who rightly predicted in an analysis on Saturday that the court would highly likely reject Mr. Koksal’s application.

“ECHR’s faith in TR’s commission defies both experience+logic. Is insult to 100K arbitrarily dismissed workers. Re-assessment must come soon,” Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International’s Turkey Researcher, said on Twitter.

In reaction to the court’s decision, Turkish citizens poured their dismay in social media.

“Both domestic remedies and decree victims are exhausted, can’t you see?” Candan Badem, a dismissed academic, wrote on Twitter, expressing his indignation over the decision.

“Why don’t you consider that the commission does not belong to domestic law? It is just an executive organ,” Ilhan Dogus of the University of Hamburg who specializes in post-Keynesian economics on labor, international finance, and EU tweeted.

He also questioned the court’s proposal that domestic remedies have yet to be exhausted with regard to dismissals of civil servants in Turkey. “Secondly, Turkish Constitutional Court has declared that these dismissals are beyond its authority,” he said in a series of tweets.

“What a justice? I have no job, no food. Nobody gives me job due to the situation. 150k people are still waiting. This is no JUSTICE,” said an engineer who worked at the state-run oil company in Turkey. He was dismissed last year.

ECtHR Overwhelmed by Backlog of Cases

One of the vexing problems the European court faces today is the overwhelming number of pending cases.

The ECtHR is “sinking under the number of cases that are pending before it,” Nuala Mole, a senior lawyer of international human rights law, said at the International Law Workshop (ILW) at Law School of Michigan University last year.

Ms. Mole, the founder of The Advice on Individual Rights in Europe (The AIRE) Centre, said the ECtHR has been going through an ongoing reform process for 10 years to reduce the caseload, to establish priorities among cases. The welfare of children and individuals deprived of liberty appeared as the urgent priorities to be dealt with; she told the audience at Michigan University on Oct. 31.

In an analysis he wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday, Mr. Altiparmak offered a sober assessment of reform efforts at the ECtHR. He grounded his forecast of the rejection two days before the decision on the ECtHR’s systematic efforts to reduce the backlog of cases, and how Turkey constitutes an obstacle to that.

The ECtHR, after long efforts, succeeded reduction of the cases when the number of applications from Turkey saw a steady decline in the pre-coup era. Turkey, along with Russia, has been the main source of applications in Europe.

When Turkey granted citizens individual application to Constitutional Court in 2012, numbers of applications to the ECtHR saw a significant drawdown, as it fell to 1584 in 2014. The total number of cases pending against the Turkish state were reduced to 8,450 by the end of 2015, Mr. Altiparmak wrote on Facebook. Turkey’s overall case rate was then 13 percent of all cases pending at the court.

But all of that has changed after the July 15 failed coup.

Thanks to 5 years of efforts, the number of cases at ECtHR shrank to 64,850. But Turkey again changed all the equation, brought a reversal of the long-running trend. The number of files at the court at the end of 2016 reached to 79,750.

On April 30 of this year, he wrote, the number of applications stood at 93,150. He forecasts that if applications proceed at the same pace in remaining months, the number of applications would reach to 120,000 at the end of the year. The achievement of 20-year reform will fade away in a year, he noted.

His analysis proved to be prescient, shrewd and accurate. In his prognostication, he asked: Will the Court rescue the ECtHR and give up on human rights?

If it does that, he construed, the Koksal decision would go down in history as the symbol of the collapse of the human rights protection mechanism.

Turkish Commission Is No Remedy

While the European Court deferred the issue to the 7-member commission in Turkey, public trust for a functioning mechanism to review appeals from civil servants runs extremely low.

The decision by the ECtHR was even regarded as a blank check to the Turkish government to move forward with further dismissals with great impunity, without any fear of international legal backlash.

Far from offering a reassurance, the Turkish Commission amplifies people’s fears that it too would mostly be overwhelmed by the number of cases, given dismissals of more than 150,000 servants.

Speaking at an event in Istanbul in April to address the humanitarian cost of dismissals, Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu punctured any illusion that the Commission would handle hundreds of thousands of cases properly in such a short time. He urged the dismissed public workers to prepare themselves for the worst, for at least 15-year struggle to gain their rights back, if only 7 members will oversee the applications to the Commission.

But time is a valuable commodity and is in short supply. People’s strength for endurance and embracing of hardships on daily basis face a moment of truth by the test of time in the absence of a proper, available job and calamitous effects of dispossession and wealth grab by the authorities.

Amnesty International report last month offers a riveting account into the shattered lives of purged workers. The upshot of the report was that there was no future for dismissed public servants who are banned from working in alternative jobs, and who are deprived of their property, basic social safety nets.

According to the majority of the sacked officials, any suggestion that the Commission would function properly seems to be unrealistic and illusory. How can 7-member who are elected by the same government, which carried out the sweeping purge, take cases of more than 150,000 dismissed officials? And will they be independent of any political intervention? What is the guaranty of its autonomy?

No plausible answers seem at hand. When Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag veered off the script months ago and offered an offhand acknowledgment about the purge, he said government employees have been removed simply by administrative decisions. The firings, dismissals did not base on a legal investigation or proceeding but took place under political whims and preferences of the government. They were political decisions, not court verdicts.

It points to a larger conundrum and complexity for the purged. Their path to legal remedy, at home and abroad, is blocked by a myriad of obstacles. And the ECtHR decision has just made their ordeal more difficult and protracted one, with no end in sight.

********

This article was possible thanks to your donations. Please keep supporting us here.

ShareTweet
Abdullah Ayasun

Abdullah Ayasun

Staff Writer

Related Posts

Syrian rescuers and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building, in the rebel-held northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province on the border with Turkey, early on February 6, 2023. Syrian rescuers (White Helmets) and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building
World

Quake Kills Over 1,200 Across Turkey, Syria

by Staff Writer
February 6, 2023
Greek Immigration Minister Notis Mitarachi
Refugees

Greece Denies Turkey Claims Over Six Migrants Killed at Sea

by Staff Writer
September 14, 2022
anti femicide group
Democracy at Risk

Anti-Femicide Group Goes on Trial in Turkey, Faces Risk of Closure

by Staff Writer
June 1, 2022
The Club Netflix
Lifestyle

Netflix Series Helps Heal Wounds of Turkey’s Jews

by Staff Writer
March 19, 2022
AFP photographer arrested
Media Freedom

Turkish Reporters Demand Protection After Violent Arrest

by Staff Writer
June 29, 2021
Erdogan Threatens to Open Europe Gates for Refugees
Featured

Turkey’s Latest Crackdown Spells Dangerous New Normal for Human Rights Defenders

by Anders L. Pettersson
October 26, 2021
Next Post
Erdogan’s False Promises To Africa

Erdogan's False Promises To Africa

Two Men Who Attacked Protesters During Erdogan’s Visit Arrested

Two Men Who Attacked Protesters During Erdogan's Visit Arrested

Please login to join discussion

Recommended

participants of an artificial intelligence conference

How AI Could Upend the World Even More Than Electricity or the Internet

March 19, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
Heavily armed police inspect the area near a Jehovah's Witness church where several people have been killed in a shooting in Hamburg, northern Germany

Eight Dead in Shooting at Jehovah’s Witness Hall in Germany

March 10, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

March 8, 2023
A flooded road in Batu Berendam in Malaysia's southern coastal state of Malacca

At Least Four Dead, Tens of Thousands Evacuated in Malaysia Floods

March 6, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023

Opinion

Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023
Top view of the US House of Representatives

‘Cringy Awards:’ Who Is the Most Embarrassing US House Representative?

February 13, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines

Eight Billion and Counting…

November 29, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post