Berk Esen, “Judicial transformation in a competitive authoritarian regime: Evidence from the Turkish case.” Law and Policy, vol. 47, no.1 (2025): e12250. Summary: What accounts for the variation in the judiciary’s ability to serve as a democratic guardrail under populist rule? This article contends that populist governments use judicial activism against their political agenda to …
In Turkey, the lawyer defending jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has himself been imprisoned amid what he calls a politically motivated purge. Mehmet Pehlivan, who represents İmamoğlu (President Erdoğan’s main rival), was detained in June on charges of belonging to a “criminal organization,” a charge he insists is entirely fabricated. Pehlivan told Reuters from prison …
Ergun Özbudun, “Turkey’s Judiciary and the Drift Toward Competitive Authoritarianism.” The International Spectator, vol. 50, no. 2 (2015): 42–55. Summary: Turkey has always been considered an “illiberal democracy”, or in Freedom House’s terms, a “partly-free” country. In recent years, however, there has been a downward trend toward “competitive authoritarianism”. Such regimes are competitive in that opposition …
Despite increasing authoritarian control over the judiciary, Turkish activist lawyers such as the Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği strategically engage with the legal system as a form of grassroots resistance that challenges and redefines state-imposed legal boundaries.