PROJE HAKKINDA.

On 6 February 2026, the European Court of Human Rights communicated to Türkiye the case of Gökoğlu and Çiçek v Türkiye, concerning the pre-trial detention of fifteen lawyers and one secretary of the People's Law Office (Halkın Hukuk Bürosu), in connection with activities carried out in a professional capacity and in defence of human rights. The lawyers were arrested in 2017 and 2019 for alleged "membership or leadership of a terrorist organisation", and several of the applicants are also members of the Progressive Lawyers Association (Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği, ÇHD). The case raises complaints under Article 5 ECHR (right to liberty), concerning the applicants' arbitrary detention and the lack of effective means to challenge it, as well as under Articles 10 and 11 ECHR (freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association), in relation to the reliance on their participation in peaceful demonstrations and their speeches at public gatherings as a basis for their detention.

 

The Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project (TLSP) lodged a third-party intervention in the case jointly with the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH), the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), the International Commission of Jurists, and Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L).

 

The intervention sets out the international and regional standards on the independence of the legal profession — including the newly adopted Council of Europe Convention on Lawyers — which safeguard lawyers' essential role in the fair administration of justice and the protection of human rights, and which require States to refrain from undue interference with lawyers' exercise of their professional duties. It documents how interference with the legal profession has intensified in Türkiye since 2016, with lawyers facing widespread judicial persecution in connection with their professional activities and defence of human rights, including arbitrary detention, conviction and sentencing, and the misuse of sentence-execution rules leading to the further unlawful extension of their detention. The intervention also addresses the lack of effective remedies against detention-related human rights violations in Türkiye.

 

Since their applications to the Court, most of the detained lawyers from the People’s Law Office have been convicted by the Turkish courts (two are still awaiting a final court decision). One of the applicants, Ebru Timtik, died in 2020 following a hunger strike demanding a fair trial, in protest at the arbitrary detention and unfair trial of herself and her colleagues and, more broadly, at systemic due process violations in Türkiye. In 2024, TLSP intervened — together with ELDH, IBAHRI, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Observatory for Lawyers in Danger, L4L, and the Law Society of England and Wales — in a related case before the Court concerning the conviction of two of these lawyers (Çağatay Gökçe and Baydar Ünsal v Türkiye), which remains pending. TLSP and partner organisations have also submitted a communication to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concerning the ongoing detention of Selçuk Kozağaçlı, one of the applicants in Gökoğlu and Çiçek, who has been unlawfully denied conditional release following his conviction.

 

The intervention submits that the case should be subject to strict scrutiny by the Court, informed by the applicants' role as lawyers and the standards on the independence of the legal profession. The case raises critical questions regarding lawyers' ability to practise their profession independently and without undue interference in Türkiye and other Council of Europe Member States.