The European Court of Human Rights convicts Turkey for illegal arrest and custody of Constitutional Court’s judge.

The case concerns the abusive government’s measures done towards the former constitutional judge, Mr. Erdal Tercan, after the attempted Coup d’État that happened in Turkey in 2016. A day after this episode, the Turkish police detained the judge, conducted a search of his home and seized computers and other IT equipment under the ill-grounded claim that he belonged to a terrorist organisation. In 2017, Tercan lodged two individual applications before the Turkish Constitutional Court. However, it rejected Tercan’s complaints about his detention, the lack of plausible reasons for it, the infringement of his right to be presumed innocent and the lack of independence and impartiality of the judges who ordered the custody measure. The case arrived at the European Court, which held that there had been a violation of article 5 § 1 ( right to liberty and security) article 5 § 3 ((right to liberty and security: reasoning of decisions to remand in custody and length of detention) and article 8 (right to respect for private and family life and for one’s home). The European judged condemned the conditions in which Mr. Tercan was exposed while in custody and affirmed that the suspicions raised by the Turkish State to arrest him did not fulfill the minimum legal requirements that this procedure demands. For further information, please visit: https://stockholmcf.org/european-court-rules-turkey-violated-top-judges-rights/