CoE - European Conference of Judges "Judicial Integrity and Corruption" - Strasbourg | 7 November 2017

The Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland opened the European Conference of Judges: "Judicial Integrity and Corruption", to be held at the Council of Europe on 7 November 2017. This conference, organised by the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE) allowed to prepare a CCJE Opinion on this subject in 2018, taking into account the recommendations of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) formulated on this subject as part of its recently completed 4th Evaluation Round. The President of the CCJE, Nils Engstad (Norway) and of the GRECO, Marin Mrcela (Croatia) took part in the debate on threats to the integrity of judges, ways to prevent corruption and breaches on the integrity of judges and to the role of the executive, legislative and judicial powers in this area.

• Programme of the Conference
• Remarks by Mr Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe
• Speech by Mr Mr Marin Mrčela, Vice-President of the Supreme Court of Croatia, President of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO)
• Speech by Mr Alain Lacabarats, President of Chamber of the Cassation Court of France, Member of the CCJE [in French]
• Speech by Mr Mr Paul Maffei, President of the Cassation Court of Belgium, member of the CCJE [in French]
• Speech by Mr José Igreja Matos, Judge at the Court of Appeal of Porto, Portugal, President of the European Association of Judges (EAJ)
• Speech by Ms Aneta Arnaudovska, Judge, Director of the Academy of Judges and Prosecutors of "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Member of the CCJE

Imprisoned Journalists in Turkey and the ECHR and ECHR Standards

FETÖ is a designation as a legal concept for the penal code but also difficult to understand as its clarification and emphasise is not properly made, but seemingly it stands for not Hizmet affiliation but in a broad sense can be summarised to illegally accessing political and judiciary powers or some other bodies of the state and employment of its instruments for terrorising events. While handling with the criminal activity to the independence of the state, its side of violation of human rights must be included as well, as it is both in theory and international standards.

Such a complex designation as a legal attempt is because, it was not the Europe or the Western Countries maybe took so long to understand the dangerous conflict in the political and judicial body of Turkey, but it was Turkey which has taken so long to understand the necessity to maintain constitutional and also legal implications (along with all the other related bodies of the State upon necessity) to prevent such criminal activities.

Imprisoned journalists in Turkey are held in prison for their either direct or indirect involvement into such events along with weak claims by the prosecutors because the judicial body is not already prepared to handle such cases.

Downfall in the judicial body happened when they were so much engaged in the political contentions and they've found the appropriate way to seek justice in the ECHR emphasising that they were held as hostage by the government because of their ideas, thoughts. It is true that they don't share the same thoughts with the government as also they describe themselves as opponents which for them is the pre-condition of being a democrat, which can be true but the situation, history and affairs in the judicial body or the political body has never been a concern for their so-told democrat intentions.



They are afraid of to tell that they have failed to do their responsibilities as journalists, moreover as self-claimed liberals and democrats and choosing the way to take the government as the opponent for it was anyway government's task to regulate such activities but the media - governement relation was already another issue in Turkey.

Constitutional or Legal implications facing the conflicts in the political area was out of question, or concern. And tries to defend themselves under the freedom of thought and freedom of expression however freedom of expression is also a concept which has to be taken into account under exceptional situations such as social conflicts.

Freedom of thought is also requires the activities of the journalists from a broader period as an account other than what it was, for their perspective, the problem among them and the government

Their "development of thoughts" had never been in the context of international law or standards but contemporary political currents, means this also is out of the concept of the freedom of thought.


They try not to stand apart from their omnipotent righteousness maybe not being notified by the veritable facts of the recent story of the state institutions.

If they had done their job well it would also serve for the European Union and the ECHR to provide evaluation cases.