On June 17, 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the 2025 Commission report on Türkiye that delivers one of its most forceful indictments to date of the Turkish judiciary’s role in dismantling the rule of law. The text condemns the harassment and prosecution of defense lawyers for their professional work, naming the continued imprisonment of Mehmet Pehlivan (lawyer for Mayor İmamoğlu) and the recent 11-year sentence imposed on Ramazan Demir (lawyer for former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş), describing such actions as “an unacceptable interference with the right to defence.” Parliament traces these abuses to the lack of independence of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors, the arbitrary removal of judges in sensitive cases, and the acceptance of secret-witness evidence. It also condemns Türkiye’s defiance of European Court of Human Rights rulings and the country’s broader consolidation into what it calls a “fully authoritarian system.” The resolution is relevant as a detailed, institutionally authoritative account of lawyers and an independent bar being targeted as part of democratic decline.

Read it here.