The pre-trial detention of 427 judges in Turkey was illegal - Decision of the ECtHR
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled against Turkey on 23.7.2021 for the illegal pre-trial detention of 427 Turkish judges following the failed coup attempt in July 2016. The applicants are 427 Turkish nationals, all members of the Court of Cassation or the Supreme Administrative Court, or judges in lower courts or prosecutors at the time of the events giving rise to the applications. The case concerns the arrest and pre-trial detention of the applicants, all of whom were sitting as judges or prosecutors at the time, in the aftermath of the military coup attempt of 15 July 2016, on suspicion of being members of an organisation described by the Turkish authorities as the “Fetullahist Terrorist Organisation / Parallel State Structure” (Fetullahçı Terör Örgütü / Paralel Devlet Yapılanması). Relying on Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security), the applicants complain that they were placed in pre-trial detention in breach of the domestic law governing the arrest and p