Military Judges and the Right to a Fair Trial

In two previous issues of this journal we have examined different stages in the complaints made by Abdullah Öcalan, the original leader of the PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan), against Turkey. 1 Now, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (‘Court’) has given judgment, under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘Convention’), on the re-hearing of the Chamber's decision in Öcalan v Turkey . 2 Overall, the Grand Chamber confirmed much of the reasoning of the Chamber and reached similar conclusions in respect of the alleged breaches of the Convention. What is worthy of further consideration is the wide division in the Grand Chamber on the issue of whether Öcalan was tried by an independent and impartial court as required by Article 6(1) of the Convention. The Ankara State Security Court, composed of two civilian and one military judge, began hearing the case against...

Convention · Human rights · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics