‘Number of individual applications to Constitutional Court is gradually increasing’

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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Constitutional Court President Zühtü Arslan released a message on the occasion of the top court's 59th foundation anniversary today (April 26).

Noting that they have postponed the ceremony and events that they traditionally hold to mark the day due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Arslan has underlined that "the 'contemporary civilization's' preference of political regime is Constitutional democracy, as pointed out by the Republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and indicated in the Constitution."

He has further underlined that "the Turkish Constitutional Court, which is one of the most experienced courts of the world in terms of Constitutional law, has been making efforts to realize the principle of supremacy of the Constitution and to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms within the scope of the duties and powers vested in the court by the Constitution."

"It needs to be noted that the Constitutional Court has been keeping up with its rights-oriented approach with determination, as required by its aim of safeguarding and improving the Constitutional rights and freedoms," Zühtü Arslan has underlined further in his statement.

45 thousand applications finalized in 2020

According to the Court President's message, "the workload of the Turkish Constitutional Court is so heavy that it cannot be compared with that of the courts fulfilling the same duty in other countries."

At this point, Zühtü Arslan has shared some statistics.

He has announced that the Constitutional Court finalized nearly 45 thousand applications in 2020. The Court's rate of meeting the applications continued to increase in 2020 despite the pandemic and hit the level of 112 percent, the Court President has said further.

"It needs to be noted that the number of individual applications has been increasing gradually," he has stated, adding that "17 thousand applications have been made so far in 2020 and, depending on this, the number of pending applications has also neared 46 thousand."

Concluding his statement, Constitutional Court President Arslan has said that "the Constitutional Court keeps on working to fulfil its duty of protecting the democratic state of law and people's fundamental rights in the best way possible despite all these hardships." (DŞ/SD)