Joakim Parslow. “Lawyers against the Law: The Challenge of Turkish Lawyering Associations.” Anthropology of the Middle East, vol. 13, no. 2 (2018): 26-52.
This study explores why activist lawyers in Turkey continue to engage with a legal system increasingly dominated by executive power. Despite growing repression, associations like the Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği (ÇHD), Turkey’s oldest activist lawyering organization, remain defiant against forced closures and legal persecution. By tracing the historical roots of the ÇHD, the paper argues that legal activism in Turkey arises not only from political opposition but also from strategic adaptations to an authoritarian-corporatist system designed to suppress dissent. These lawyers do not simply operate within the official legal framework—they actively challenge and reshape it through grassroots legal engagement that resists state-imposed narratives, categories, and procedures.