Page 28 - 2020 Yılında Diyarbakır Barosu Başkanı, Yönetim Kurulu ve Baro Üyesi Avukatlara Yönelik Soruşturma ve Kovuşturmalara Dair Rapor

DIYARBAKIR BAR ASSOCIATION DIYARBAKIR BAR ASSOCIATION
LAWYERS’ RIGHTS CENTER LAWYERS’ RIGHTS CENTER

given a decision to search, arrest and detain them because they had their names,
surnames, and phone numbers on an alleged list of the Democratic Society Congress
( Demokratik Toplum Kongresi /DTK) . The list alleged to be in the Democratic Society
Congress is the list that contains the names and contact information of our colleagues
who work for election and ballot box security during election periods. In addition,
some of our colleagues were accused of being a member of the Mesopotamia
Lawyers Association (Mezopotomya Hukukçular Derneği) , which was closed by a
decree law, an done of our colleagues of being a member of the Rosa Women’s
Association ( Rosa Kadın Derneği) , which operates to prevent violence against
women.
4) Investigations and Prosecutions against Our Colleagues Due
to the Democratic Society Congress
Between 2017- 2020, many of our colleagues were detained for allegedly
participating in some of the activities of the Democratic Society Congress, which has
been operating in Diyarbakır since 2007. Criminal cases were filed against at least 12
of our colleagues with the accusation of ‘ members of the organization’ within the
scope of Article 314/ 2 of the Turkish Penal Code due to some of the activities of the
Democratic Society Congress. Lawyer Fethi Gümüş, who served as the President of
the Bar Association between 1990- 1994, was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months
in prison, Lawyer Mehmet Emin Aktar10 , who served as the President of the Bar
Association between 2008- 2012, and a colleague (1) of our Bar Association were
also sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in prison.
According to the findings of our center, a verdict of acquittal has been made against
five (5) colleagues of the same accusation, criminal cases against at least four (4) of
our colleagues are stil pending.
The activities carried out by the Democratic Society Congress in various fields in the
solution process and with the participation, knowledge and approval of the state
bureacucracy stemming from the nature of the solution process were criminalized
with the end of the solution process, the investigation and prosecution and finally
punishment of the addressees of the solution process clearly eliminates the ‘prescribed
by law principle’. The interpretation of the Grand Chamber of the European Court
of Human Rights in the Demirtaş decision11 in terms of the principle of prejudice is
quite striking. The Court; one of the requirements arising from the phrase ‘prescribed
by law’ is predictability. In the Court’s view ; if a norm is not formulated with sufficient
precision to allow individuals to regulate their behavior and does not allow individuals
to anticipate at a reasonable level the relevant circumstances and consequences of
their actions- if necessary, with appropriate advice- fort he purposes of paragraph 2
of Article 10, is not considered a ‘law’ for its purposes. Grand Chamber continues;
Referring to the report of the Venice Commission; ‘It stated that in the application of
Article 314 of the Criminal Code, the domestic courts generally tend to decide on
the basis of very weak evidence when assessing the membership of individuals to an
armed organization (…)
The range of actions attributed to the applicant in relation to the serious crimes in
Article 314 of the Criminal Code is quite extensive within the scope of this article
and this, combined with the interpretation of the domestic courts, does not provide
sufficient safeguards against arbitrary intervention by the domestic courts’.
The Grand Chamber described the Democratic Society Congress as ‘ Democratic

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