Turkey’s Post-Coup ‘Purification Process
Collective Dismissals of Public Servants under the European Convention on Human Rights
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7801059 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tom Ruys (0000-0002-5605-8557, International Law, Ghent University, corresponding author), Emre Turkut (0000-0002-9942-8802, Doctoral Researcher, Ghent University) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 539-565 |
| Publication date | 2018-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Rights Law Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1461-7781 • E-ISSN: 1744-1021 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hrlr/ngy020 |
| OpenAlex | W2890008897 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
On 15 July 2016, an attempted military coup took place in Turkey, which left 246 dead and 2194 wounded, and sent a shockwave through Turkish society. The response from Ankara followed swiftly. On 21 July 2016, the Turkish Government imposed a nationwide state of emergency, and notified its intention to derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Numerous emergency decrees were promulgated, providing for the closure of more than 3000 schools, media outlets and so on, as well as the detention and arrest of several tens of thousands of individuals. One of the key features of the Turkish Government’s response concerns the dismissal, and exclusion from public service, of more than 130,000 judges, prosecutors, military personnel, police officers, teachers and other civil servants. Having regard to a number of recent admissibility decisions which make clear that the European Court of Human Rights is unlikely to address the matter soon, this article critically examines this unprecedented ‘purge’ from the perspective of ECHR law. It specifically focuses on the application of Article 8 of the ECHR and Article 6 together with Article 13 of the ECHR, drawing analogies with the European Court’s case-law on lustration proceedings. It finds that, even having regard to the exceptional circumstances at hand as well as the Turkish derogation from the ECHR, the Turkish ‘purge’ of public servants cannot be reconciled with the state’s obligations under the ECHR.
Convention · Derogation · Dismissal · Government (linguistics) · Human rights · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State of emergency · Turkish · International Law and Human Rights · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Ombudsman and Human Rights
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Sovereign Islam in Türkiye
Remembering hope
Embodied geopolitics and negotiations of belongings from Turkey to Athens after 2016
Coups and refugee flows in autocracies and democracies
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |