Turkey’s Constitutional Court finds right violation in denial of books to inmates

Turkey’s Constitutional Court has found that the denial of books to inmates, including pro-Kurdish politician Sebahat Tuncel, violated their “freedom of expression.”

Friday March 01 2024 07:21 pm

Duvar English

Turkey’s Constitutional Court has found right violation in cases regarding the denial of books to inmates, including pro-Kurdish politician Sebahat Tuncel, by prison administrations.

In a decision issued on Official Gazette on March 1, the court ruled that denying books to inmates violated their “freedom of expression,” according to reporting from online news outlet Medyascope.

Accordingly, the court merged 12 cases due to the same subject matter.

The applicants first filed lawsuits after they were not delivered some books by the decisions of the prison administrations, namely the penal institution education boards. The relevant execution judgeships rejected the complaints of applicants other than Sebahat Tuncel.

Similarly, the heavy criminal courts rejected the applicants' appeals against these decisions on grounds similar to those of the execution judgeships.

Only Sebahat Tuncel’s complaint was accepted by an Ankara judgeship as it said no investigation was made into whether the books were among the banned publications. However, an Ankara heavy criminal court dismissed this decision, saying the decisions of the education boards were following the law.

In its decision, the Constitutional Court stated that each prison conducts its own inspection of the books, leading to “variable evaluations of whether the same book should be given to” prisoners.

“It can even be observed that the same institution has different practices at different times regarding the admission of the same book. In particular, observations on best-selling publications show that these publications are given to persons in some penal institutions without any intervention, while in other penal institutions, they are partially or completely denied to persons,” the court added.

While it ruled that the denial of books to these inmates violated their “freedom of expression,” the court ordered the applicants, except Burhan Güneş, who did not claim compensation, to be paid 5,000 liras each for non-pecuniary damages.