On March 23, 2026, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights heard a new case brought by the prominent Turkish rights defender Osman Kavala, who has been held continuously in pretrial detention since October 2017 — despite multiple binding ECHR judgments ordering his release. The case represents the latest chapter in a years-long confrontation between Turkey’s judiciary and European human rights law, one in which Turkish courts have thus far deferred to political pressure from the executive rather than complying with international legal obligations; this defiance led the Council of Europe to initiate infringement proceedings against Turkey in 2022, only the second time in the body’s history such a mechanism has been used. The Kavala hearing comes weeks after a Turkish trial court convicted 30 lawyers and human rights defenders affiliated with the Association of Lawyers for Freedom on terrorism-related and expression-based charges in January 2026 — convictions that international organizations condemned as “unjust and politically motivated” and based solely on the defendants’ lawful professional activities. The OMCT and IAPL have urged UN Special Rapporteurs to intervene on behalf of Turkey’s prosecuted lawyers, describing the systematic criminalization of defense work as a defining feature of Turkey’s ongoing democratic deterioration.

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