The Decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court on the Peace Petition: An Analysis in the Context of Freedom of Expression, Academic Freedom and the Concept of Loyalty to the State;

Abstract

In this paper, Turkish Constitutional Court’s decision on the individual application of Zübeyde Füsun Üstel and Others, which is an important turning point in the legal struggle of the signatories of the petition titled “We will not be a party to this crime”, is examined in the context of freedom of expression, academic freedom and the concept of loyalty to the state. Within this framework, firstly, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the Turkish Constitutional Court regarding freedom of expression were summarized and the method of exa-mination used by the Constitutional Court in Zübeyde Füsun Üstel and Others case was discussed. Secondly, due to the close relationship of the case of Academics for Peace with academic freedom, the discussions on academic freedom within international human rights mechanisms, especially in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights was examined in detail, and it was argued that the Constitutional Court developed a new jurisprudence in this context. Thirdly, the dissenting opinions on the case were analyzed with a special focus on the concept of loyalty to the state used by the judges dissenting from the decision of the majority as an indicator of their mindset. The analysis concluded that the dissenting judges regarded themselves rather as protectors of the interests of the state than as the guardians of the rule of law and human rights. The discussions on the judicial independence and impartiality in Turkey were also taken into consideration for the analysis. © 2020, Turkish Medical Association. All rights reserved.