MERSİN – Lawyer Mehmet Altuntaş criticised the Committee of Ministers' refraining from taking effective steps against Turkey's failure for 11 years to make the legal arrangement requested for the "right to hope" decision and said, "This hypocrisy gives power to those who want to use the law arbitrarily." 

 

In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that the "right to hope" of Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan had been violated by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states that imprisoning a person for life without the possibility of release violates the "prohibition of torture and ill-treatment". In this regard, the Court asked Turkey to "make an execution arrangement that would pave the way for the release of aggravated life sentences". 

 

Due to Turkey's failure to make such a regulation, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which has the authority to supervise the implementation of ECtHR judgements and to impose sanctions on member states that do not comply with the judgements, put the issue on its agenda. At each meeting held on the issue since 2021, the Committee has given Turkey a deadline for legal regulation. The Committee, which last met in September, again gave Turkey a 9-month deadline for legal arrangements.

 

Commenting on the decision, Lawyers for Freedom Association (ÖHD) member Mehmet Altuntaş pointed to the developments leading to the start of the Peace and Democratic Society Process and recalled Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chair Devlet Bahçeli's remarks on the "right to hope". Altuntaş said that the lack of any regulation following Bahçeli's remarks was "related to a conflict of interest within the state" and linked Bahçeli's statement to regional developments. Stating that the names within the state act according to their own interests regarding the solution of the Kurdish issue, Altuntaş stated that the right to hope is a fundamental right in the context of international conventions and ECtHR judgements and cannot be evaluated only in the context of the Kurdish issue. 

 

'RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DECISION LIES WITH THE COMMITTEE'

 

Altuntaş emphasised that the Committee of Ministers, which has the authority to supervise and sanction, is mainly responsible for the non-implementation of the ECtHR judgement despite the 11 years that have passed, and said that the Council acts on the basis of its economic and political relations with Turkey. 

 

"The ECtHR judgement has not been implemented although 11 years have passed. There is neither accountability nor sanctions. This hypocrisy empowers those who want to use the law arbitrarily, while Europe denies its own values," he said. 

 

Underlining that the isolation in İmralı continues and that the rights in the law do not work here, Altuntaş said: "It is against the nature of the process to deprive the interlocutor of a two hundred year old problem even of the rights in the law. These affairs require seriousness and cannot be sustained with excuses." 

 

LAST CHANCE FOR A SOLUTION

 

Noting that the most fundamental duty of the state is to guarantee rights, Altuntaş stated that not recognising the "right to hope" would feed distrust in the process and that guarantees must be established in such an important process. 

 

He concluded: "Otherwise, the political power may cut off the process like turning off a tap when there are results it does not want, and this will produce inconclusiveness. I see this period as the last chance for a solution for the society and the state. If this opportunity is not utilised, everyone will face a great danger."

 

MA / Abdulkadir Ayten