Judicial package in pipeline: Justice minister

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Ergin says the fourth judicial package will be submitted to Parliament soon. DAILY NEWS photo

The fourth judicial package, which aims to remedy structural problems in the Turkish judicial system that are related to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rulings concerning violation of human rights in Turkey, will be submitted to Parliament “in a short while,” Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin announced Feb. 5.

“Our efforts regarding this issue are based on widespread societal demand and reconciliation on one hand; and our determination to remedy our country’s image before the ECHR on the other hand,” Ergin said at the opening of the High Level Conference on Freedom of Expression and Media Freedom in Turkey that was jointly hosted by the Justice Ministry and the Council of Europe (CoE). Turkey has made substantial progress within recent years on freedom of expression, Ergin said, adding that problems on this issue predominantly arise due to inherited legal and structural problems.

Ali Alkan, head of the Supreme Court of Appeals, also speaking at the same conference, said that freedom of expression is a key issue in the democratization process.

‘Problems are obvious’

“Real indicators of the democratization process of a state are observed in the field of freedom of expression; tendency towards authoritarianism initially surface over issues related with freedom of expression. Considering the number of cases about freedom of expression before our national courts as well as the ECHR, it’s obvious that we have problems on this issue,” Alkan said.

Head of the Constitutional Court Haşim Kılıç said political approaches nourished by tensions eventually lead to hate speech. “Even the simplest problems are turning into regime crises after being infiltrated by ideological views,” Kılıç said.