Turkey details Human Rights Action Plan in Official Gazette

ANKARA

A presidential decree detailing the execution of the Human Rights Action Plan until 2023 has been published in the Official Gazette, informing that the Justice Ministry will schedule how the plan will be implemented in the coming two years.

Signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the decree recalls that the plan was unveiled by Erdoğan in early March under the title of “Free Individual, Strong Society: A More Democratic Turkey.”

The decree underlined that the action plan was aiming to undertake changes to broaden the rights and freedoms and to improve the public services in a more equal, transparent and just way as well as to create awareness about the protection of human rights.

Erdoğan stressed that all the relevant institutions had been instructed for a smooth and effective implementation of the action plan in line with the scheduled calendar, informing that a commission to follow and coordinate all these actions has been established. It will be chaired by the president with the participation of the vice president, the Justice Ministry, the Family, Labor and Social Security Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Interior Ministry. It will meet every six months, he added.

The human rights action plan aims to strengthen legal security as well as human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The government had unveiled the plan in line with its vows to upgrade its democracy as part of its efforts to ameliorate the conditions for direct investment and other economic partnerships.

Aim to implement 90 percent of plan in one year

Meanwhile, Justice Ministry spokesman Ertuğrul Çekin told reporters that around 90 percent of the plan would be put into implementation within a year.

“The Human Rights Action Plan consists of nine objectives, 50 targets and 393 events under 11 fundamental principles. These events will be implemented one by one within a two-year implementation period,” he said.

Çekin recalled that the action plan was also going to serve for the creation of suitable legal ground for the government’s plan to draft a purely civilian and new constitution.