The study by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) also revealed that confidence in the fairness of courts is weak and people believe favoritism and power relations play an important role in the functioning of the justice system.
“A substantial portion of the interviewees have defined justice by reference to the principle of equality. In this connection, many interviewees have listed both ‘judicial etatism’ and the prevalence of favoritism and power relations among the factors that damage equality and thus confidence in justice,” states the book “Just at Times, Unjust in Others: People's Perception of the Judiciary in the Democratization Process.”
The is authored by Mithat Sancar, professor of law at Ankara University’s faculty of law, and Suavi Aydın, professor of anthropology at Hacettepe University.
Aydın said the study was conducted through in-depth interviews in 20 provinces in Turkey and with 59 people from various levels of society.
“People were not as comfortable as judges when they were talking since the topic was the judiciary. So this required us to read between the lines,” Aydın said, adding that people have a strong belief that justice is not served in courts.
Among the reasons listed are that some people believe that people who have financial power or a high status in society are favored in courts, that attorneys seek ways outside the court room to deliver results, that courts deliver results late, that it is expensive to go to court, that courts deliver results without conducting an in-depth investigation or looking at the findings of court appointed experts, that courts decide in favor of employers and the state and that people are not treated with the respect they deserve in court.
 Serap Yazıcı, Suavi Aydın, Mithat Sancar, Eylem Ümit Atılgan and Etyen Mahçupyan (from left to right) participated in TESEV’s panel discussion yesterday as speakers. |
While some interviewees believe that interventions that damage the independence of the judiciary come mainly from the government, others think that other forces within the state are influencing the judiciary for the purpose of creating unfavorable results for the government, Aydın said.
“That shows how political the judiciary has become. This is the common point of both of the views,” he said.
On the other hand, Sancar said the judges and prosecutors that Eylem Ümit Atılgan of Ankara University’s faculty of law interviewed in the book “Justice Can Be Bypassed Sometimes: Judges and Prosecutors in the Democratization Process” have similar perceptions on the basic issues plaguing the judiciary. So the authors agree that this confirms the prevalence of the belief that there exist serious problems in the functioning of the judicial system in Turkey.
“We believe that this constitutes adequate proof of the urgent need for a comprehensive debate about the judiciary and for a radical reform program in Turkey,” they stated.
Atılgan said she can’t wait to share the book with the judges and prosecutors that she interviewed during a five-month period she spent in courts. She mentioned that the interviewees talked about a process in which they have willingly become “asocial” and have been transformed to be mere “technicians” and said they feel as though they are “being broken off” from the public.
Professor Serap Yazıcı from İstanbul Bilgi University said during a panel discussion that criticisms regarding the independence of the judiciary can be overcome by laws and regulations but the issue of “objectivity” is more difficult to handle.
“Since the establishment of the republic, this has been a problem because certain forms of the mentality of the political elite have been prominent, leading to the authoritarian interpretation of even the most liberal constitutional freedoms,” she said.
Yazıcı added that this mentality reached its peak with the adoption of the 1982 Constitution following the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup.
“A tutelage system has been formed through the chair of the presidency. The presidency falls under the supervision of the Turkish military in this system as all judiciary rulings can be directed through the presidency,” she said. “In the Turkish judicial system, the number of rulings that were based on the principle of objectivity would most likely be in the minority.”
Another striking finding of the study relates to an isolationist nationalist mindset. Even judges and prosecutors who voiced relatively libertarian views on other issues have displayed a nationalist reflex supported by an “allergy to the West” when discussing this issue.
“We can add that the interviewees also displayed strong prejudices against the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), based on the same perceptions. It is clear that this constitutes a serious impediment to ECtHR decisions having an impact on national legislation and transforming the national legal system,” Sancar and Atılgan stated in the book.
TESEV head Can Paker said that following the first two books of the judiciary project, TESEV is planning to publish a study on how the media portrays the judiciary and another on the ideological basis of the judiciary.
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