Turkey Slams Council Of Europe For Not Respecting Turkish Courts

Turkey has said it will not respect the Council of Europe if it does not respect Turkish courts.

This was said by the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday, as he was asked about a decision to refer the case against a jailed businessman, Osman Kavala to court.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry also criticized the Council of Europe for adopting a biased stance in the Kavala case.

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry recalled that; "The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe had adopted a decision on December 2, 2021, and notified Turkey of the intention of referring the Kavala case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to determine whether Turkey has executed the judgment of Kavala."

"In line with the spirit of cooperation we have displayed so far, our Government shared our views with the Council of Europe on 19 January 2022, in which we explained in detail that the ECtHR's judgment has been executed, that Kavala's detention was the result of another judicial proceeding, and that the matter should be examined based on legal principles."

"Despite this, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted an interim decision on 2 February 2022 by a majority vote that the case of Kavala be referred to the ECtHR. Thereby, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe interferes with the independence of the judicial proceedings and violated the principle of respect for judicial proceedings."

"It is obvious that this biased and politically motivated decision, which disregards the domestic proceedings, damages the credibility of the European human rights system."

Kavala faced charges over the 2013 Gezi Park protests that killed eight protesters, including a police officer.

He was acquitted of all charges in February 2020, but an appeal court overturned this verdict in January.

A Turkish court had on January 17 ignored a final deadline set by the council for the release of Kavala by ordering that he be kept in jail.