Fédération des Barreaux d'Europe (FBE)
The European Bars Federation (FBE) will closely watch the trial of 7 January 2014 against lawyers of the Istanbul Bar Association
France (ots)
- Mr. Ümit Kocasakal, President of the Istanbul Bar Association and nine Board members are being prosecuted for their fight to guarantee the right of defense in Turkey - The European Bars Federation (FBE), representing 250 European Bars with more than 800.000 European lawyers sees the process as an attack against the principles of separation of powers and the rule of law - Ms Banu Kurtulan, a Turkish-speaking Austrian Lawyer, will attend the hearing of January 7 2014 in Silivri/Turkey and all future court sessions as official representative and observer of the European Bars Federation (FBE) - The FBE is an official adviser of the Council of Europe
Ten members of the Board the Istanbul Bar are being charged with attempting to influence the members of judiciary and, if found guilty, may face imprisonment for up to 4 years. The facts behind this trial are that the Istanbul Bar intervened during a famous process, the Bayloz case, in April 2012 when some Turkish lawyers could no more exercise their constitutional duty to defend their clients. This kind of intervention of the Bar is allowed by the Turkish Law on Attorneyship, No. 1136.
Consequently, the European Advocacy, embodied by the FBE, sees the prosecution of the head of the Istanbul Bar as a political undue influence in the judiciary and as a pretext of the Turkish Government to launch an attack against the principles of separation of powers and the rule of law, legal values that the Turkish Advocacy and the FBE defend all over Europe.
Contact:
Mr. Javier Diago, Secretary General of the FBE
tel. 0034620886208
Email: fbe.secretariogeneral@javierdiago.es
Ms. Banu Kurtulan, FBE official representative
tel. +43/01/2126116
fax +43/01/212611611
Email: office@kurtulan.at
FBE website: www.fbe.org