THE PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED IN THE SUPERVISED RELEASE SYSTEM TURKEY

Unlawful and discriminatory state practices, which have become a state policy in Turkey since the 15 July coup attempt, are manifested in various ways in society and state institutions. It has been confirmed by many judgements of the ECtHR that especially political investigations and terrorism trials are concluded with a trial method that is far from the Constitution and universal legal principles. The most prominent these judgements is the Yalçınkaya v. Turkey judgement. With the Yalçınkaya judgement, which is an explicit depiction of the ambiguities and arbitrariness in terrorism trials in Turkey, the ECtHR has shown how wrong the Turkish judiciary is in terms of terrorism trials and called for an immediate return to the law. The judgement, which is a turning point and a milestone for the Turkish judiciary and recent terrorism trials, ruled that there had been systematic violations of the principle of legality of offences and punishments under Article 7 and the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR.

Unfortunately, many judgements rendered as a result of systematic violations of the Constitution, the ECHR and universal legal principles by the Turkish judiciary have been finalised with the boilerplate reasoning and inadequate justification by the Regional Courts of Appeal and the Court of Cassation. On the other hand, the execution process of these finalised unlawful judgements is also subjected to unlawful and discriminatory practices. It is seen that systematic, planned, unlawful, arbitrary and discriminatory regime practices and decisions have been made in prisons for those whose convictions have been finalised in terrorism trials, especially those belonging to the Gülen Movement.

Convicts of terror crimes are deprived of many rights, especially supervised release and conditional release, in an arbitrary, unlawful, systematic and planned manner in violation of the Constitution and the ECHR. People are prevented from being released from prisons on the grounds of the State of Emergency and some regulations enacted afterwards.

This study, conducted under the auspices of Stichting Justice Square, will examine the arbitrary, unlawful, systematic and planned discriminatory practices against terrorism convicts in Turkey, especially in prisons, within the framework of existing national and international legislation. The study will particularly focus on the rights violations arising from the fact that, according to the Law on the Execution of Criminal and Security Measures No. 5275, terrorism convicts, who have one year or less left until their conditional release, are prevented from spending the part of their sentences until their conditional release outside the prison by applying supervised release measures, due to subjective and unjustified evaluation reports or decisions of Prison Administration and Observation Boards.

Within the scope of the study, cases that are publicised and confirmed by open sources will also be included. In addition, the reports and decisions of national and international institutions and organisations on these cases will also be included where appropriate. However, it should be recognised that there are many cases beyond those mentioned in this report. However, due to the lack of sufficient open sources and the climate of fear in Turkey, victims are afraid to even share the unlawful practices applied against them, so other cases are not included in this report.