Constitutional Court President Says They Have 47 Thousand Individual Applications to Conclude

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The closing conference of the "Evaluation of the Individual Application System in the Seventh Year" held as part of the "Joint Project for Supporting the Individual Application System to the Constitutional Court" conducted with the EU has been held in Istanbul.

Constitutional Court (AYM) President Zühtü Arslan, Head of the EU Delegation to Turkey Christian Berger and Council of Europe Director General of Human Rights and Rule of Law Christos Giakoumopoulos attended the event.

Arslan said in his speech that the introduction of individual applications to the top court had two aims: Rising the standard of Turkey's law system in terms of protection of the basic rights and ensuring that allegations of rights violations are solved by national judiciary authorities and not bringing to these allegations beyond national borders as far as possible.

Arslan stated that there are 47 thousand individual applications at the Constitutional Court as of today.

"Difficult decisions under difficult conditions"

Arslan made the following remarks:

"First of all, the Constitutional Court, by applying the individual application system in Turkey, has effectively raised the standard of fundamental rights and freedoms. The AYM made very important, groundbreaking decisions and made difficult decisions under difficult conditions in the individual application that was put into practice seven years ago today, on September 23, 2012.

In almost every field, from the right to life to the freedom of expression, it decided on the allegations of human rights violations by thousands of people and, on the other hand, resolved many legal issues concerning fundamental rights and freedoms in the country.

"The aim of the constitutional legislator was not to bring allegations of rights violations before international judicial bodies by dealing with allegations of violations within the country.

"Applications at the ECtHR has decreased by half"

"Seven years later, we can see that this practical goal has been realized to a great extent. Before the start of the individual application in 2012, the ECtHR had 16,900 applications. There were 16,900 applications from Turkey. Today, the number of these applications is 8 thousand 800. They stated that almost half of these applications were made after July 15, 2016 [coup attempt].

"This seven-year period has not been easy. I witnessed the beginning of the individual application, including the preparation stages. Today we are still dealing with individual applications. It wasn't really easy. We have encountered the heaviest workload of any country's constitutional court.

"Initially our workload was not too heavy. There were about 4 thousand, 5 thousand, 10 thousand pending applications. At this point, we are faced with a workload that no Constitutional Court has ever faced in the world. Currently, there are 47 thousand individual applications pending before the Constitutional Court.

"If we consider that the total number of applications made to the ECHR from 47 countries is 62 thousand, we can easily understand how much workload the 47 thousand individual applications bring to the Turkish Constitutional Court. " (TP/VK)