The President of the Turkish Press Federation, Sinan Burhan, and members of the Board of Directors met with Constitutional Court (AYM) President Kadir Özkaya. He said that, alongside reviewing norms, constitutional adjudication protects fundamental rights and freedoms and strengthens the democratic rule of law. He stated that AYM assessments take into consideration international approaches, European Court of Human Rights standards, the case law of other constitutional courts and the higher courts in Türkiye, as well as rapporteurs’ opinions and institutional experience. He emphasized that individual applications are handled with a focus on justice; that there is no hierarchy among judicial institutions; and that their powers are regulated by the Constitution and laws. He stated that AYM is not an appellate court and conducts constitutional review rather than reviewing compliance with laws. He reported that, in the second application of Tayfun Kahraman, a convicted defendant in the Gezi Park case, the rights to a fair trial and to individual application had been violated, and that the reasoning was in the process of being published. He said that the Court reviews procedural safeguards, not guilt, and that the first ruling also fell within this scope.
Why it matters
The main significance of the meeting is that it brought the debate over the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction onto the agenda together with how individual applications are assessed. Its emphasis that the Court does not conduct appellate review shows that rulings are examined primarily in terms of constitutional safeguards and judicial procedures, rather than assessments of guilt. This approach is important for understanding the boundaries of the judicial institutions’ powers and the relationship between them through the Constitution and laws. The finding of violations concerning the rights to a fair trial and to individual application in Kahraman’s case points to an assessment that expands the scope of the initial review. However, the fact that the reasoning has not yet been published leaves open the questions of the specific grounds on which the violations were established and how the ruling will be implemented.
Background
The president is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 7 reports mentioning this name in the past 90 days; the latest is dated September 10, 2026.