ANKARA - Speaking on the International Day of the Right to Fair Trial, ÇHD Ankara Branch President Murat Yılmaz demanded that pretence of fair trials must end.
Following the death of lawyer Ebru Timtik on August 27, 2020, law organizations all around the world declared June 14th, the International Day of the Right to Fair Trial. The day in which different countries will be focused on each year, the day was attributed to Ebru Timtik this year.
Contemporary Lawyers Association (ÇHD), Lawyers for Freedom Association (ÖHD), Human Rights Association (İHD) Ankara branches, Lawyers for Justice, Lawyers for Democracy, Lawyers in Solidarity and Social Law held a press conference regarding the International Day of the Right to Fair Trial today.
Many lawyers and human rights defenders attended the meeting held at the ÇHD Headquarters. A banner “A fair trial is a right” was hung in the hall.
'THIS IS A CALDRON OF INJUSTICE'
Speaking at the press release, ÇHD Ankara Branch Chair Murat Yılmaz underlined that the law is used as a tool to supress and intimidate the opposition in Turkey. Yılmaz said: "The legal system in Turkey have become a caldron of injustice where perpetrators of massacres of the people are acquitted, workplace homicides are acquitted, the crimes in which the state officials are the perpetrators are justified."
Stating that the investigation files, which had been kept on hold for years due to political decisions, were brought to light in a flash, and that revolutionary and democrat people were detained and arrested, Yılmaz said, “Political trials are carried out with judges specially appointed by the government, the statements of anonymous witnesses and confessors are taken as the sole basis in the decisions given, fake evidences are being created and law is recklessly violated."
RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL
Yılmaz repeated that they will follow the struggle for the rights as the law organizations and right defenders, and added: "A legal system in which the principles of a fair trial which are obtained as a result of struggles is implemented, the requirements of the right to defense and fair trial are fulfilled must put into effects as soon as possible. The pretences that trials are fair must end."