Reform in Turkey

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About this Event

10 Feb 2004

Reform in Turkey

Statement by Mr Erdogan Iscan

Minister Plenipotentiary, Deputy Director General for Council of Europe and Human Rights
Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
At the Institute of European Affairs
10th February 2004

Let me first express my thanks for giving this opportunity to share with you the views of the Turkish Government.

I am sure everybody here is well-informed about the ongoing substantial reform process in the field of democracy and human rights in Turkey.

In the interest of time, I will avoid repeating the contents of the reforms. They are already covered in detail in a number of documents including the latest Progress Report on Turkey prepared by the EU Commission.

Nevertheless, I wish to convey the underlying philosophy of the reforms.

The purpose of the reforms is to upgrade democracy and human rights standards to the highest level attainable by aligning fully the Turkish legislation and implementation with the international and in particular the European norms in order to allow all citizens to enjoy fundamental freedoms and human rights in line with European standards.

I order to achieve this, we screen the Turkish legislation in view of international documents, such as the UN conventions, the OSCE documents, the European Convention on Human Rights and other Council of Europe documents, the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, and, last but not least, the EU acquis and the Copenhagen criteria.

We also attach importance to the recommendations contained in the reports of national and international NGOs. Among the human rights bodies taking part in the decision-making process in Turkey, the Human Rights Advisory Council consists of government officials as well as representatives of NGOs. It drafts recommendations for consideration of the government and thus ensures active participation by the NGOs in the decision-making process.

The primary objective of the reform process is to ensure full compliance with the European norms. The requirements of EU harmonisation play a crucially important role in further accelerating the process.

So far, following the comprehensive constitutional amendments of October 2001, seven reform packages have been adopted. Meanwhile, a new Civil Code was adopted at the beginning of 2002.

The ambitious reform process ensured substantial progress, inter alia, in the following areas:

• Abolishing death penalty
• Fight against torture
• Reforming the prison system
• Freedom of expression
• Freedom of association and assembly
• Freedom of religion
• Functioning of the judiciary
• Civil-military relations
• Economic, social and cultural rights
• Anti-corruption measures

The government has also taken important steps to ensure effective and full implementation. Comprehensive joint projects in conjunction with the Council of Europe and the European Union on human rights training for the security forces as well as the judiciary are under way. Bilateral programmes with several European countries have also been initiated.

Recently, a special monitoring group (Reform Monitoring Group) at the political level was established to overview the progress in the actual implementation of the reforms. The Group is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (who is also entrusted with the responsibility for human rights) and comprises the Minister of Justice and the Minister of the Interior. The Group convenes frequently to address the issues related to the implementation.

Obviously, further efforts are required. But, the critical mass is already attained and the continued determination of the government is absolute and unquestionable.

Furthermore, the overhauling of several laws, for example the Penal Code, the Code on Criminal Procedure, the Press Law, etc., is under consideration at the Parliament. Legislative review for most of those draft laws by the Council of Europe has been completed.

I am aware that the new draft Turkish Penal Code is of particular interest to many. Legislative review for the new draft Turkish Penal Code has already been conducted by the Council of Europe. In addition to written comments, a series of meetings have been held between the experts from the Council of Ministry of Justice. The draft is yet under consideration at the sub-committee of the Parliament, particularly established for this purpose. During the deliberations at the sub-committee, the draft is improved by taking on board international norms, case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as comments and suggestions of local and international non-governmental organisations.

As for the international documents, one can confidently state that recently turkey has made impressive progress. Having acceded to the Twin Covenants, Turkey now is party to the six core human rights conventions of the UN. Protocol no.6 to the European convention on human rights, abolishing death penalty in peace-time, was rated. We also signed protocol no.13, which abolishes death penalty in al circumstances.
Furthermore;

• The protocol to the international covenant on civil and political rights was signed on 3 February 2004.
• The signature procedure for the second optional protocol to the international convent on civil and political rights is under way.
• The optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the involvement of children in armed conflict was ratified on 16 October 2003.
• The UN convention against corruption was signed on 10 December 2003.
• Council of Europe’s civil law convention on corruption as well as criminal law convention on corruption were ratified.

I should also like to touch upon briefly the importance we attach to maintaining cooperation with international human rights mechanisms. We submit our reports on the implementation of UN core conventions to the respective treaty bodies. At the moment, we have no overdue report. Turkey is also among the few countries which extend open invitation to UN’s non-convention mechanisms.

Where do we stand now?

• Turkey has made great progress.
• It continues to move ahead in the right direction.
• The government has absolute resolve to maintain the momentum.
• Most of the legislative and regulatory framework has been put in place.
• The challenge now is to make sure that all of these provisions are given full effect in practice.
• Training programmes are under way.
• We are determined to continue to cooperate with national and international monitoring mechanisms.

Thank you.

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