The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has begun its quarterly human rights meeting on Monday. The session will end tomorrow, Wednesday. In September 2024, the Committee gave Turkey one year to implement the ‘Right to Hope’ in the cases of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, Hayati Kaytan, Emin Gurban, and Civan Boltan.
Before the Committee’s quarterly meeting, under Rule 9.2, national and international legal organizations submitted notices stating that Turkey has not implemented the right to hope. The Association for Democracy and International Law (MAF-DAD), which also wrote to members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Committee of Ministers (CM) regarding the ECtHR’s ruling on the “right to hope,” became one of the civil society organizations most active in this process.
Rengin Ergül, a lawyer and MAF-DAD member, evaluated for ANF both the upcoming Committee of Ministers meeting, Turkey’s approach to the right to hope, the expectations of legal organizations, and the possible interim decision.
What is the nature of the undergoing Committee of Ministers meeting?
At the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers Human Rights (CMDH) meetings, held quarterly, the Committee monitors the implementation of ECtHR violation rulings by member states. The agenda of each meeting is announced after the previous one. The agenda of the September 2025 meeting includes the Gurban group.
At the September 2024 meeting, the Committee declared that if Turkey did not take steps or present an action plan by September 2025, an interim resolution would be issued. This meeting coincides with the expiration of that deadline. Therefore, the Committee will likely announce its interim resolution regarding Turkey after the meeting.
In September 2024, the Committee gave Turkey one year to implement the right to hope, and now that year has expired. Has Turkey taken the steps the Committee announced during this period? Is there any indication of that?
Turkey submitted its action plan before this meeting and repeated its old arguments. As we mentioned in previous interviews, Turkey’s claim is that there is a new judicial reform and a new judicial strategy.
However, looking at Turkey’s domestic agenda—debates about the peace process, legislation related to the process, and judicial reform or strategy—no concrete step has been taken so far on the right to hope.
Some arrangements were made regarding sick prisoners, but even in those, aggravated life sentences were excluded in the legal text.
Moreover, there was a statement by Devlet Bahçeli rejecting the right to hope, and more recently the Ministry of Justice has also taken a stance against it. Meanwhile, DEM Party, the Kurdish Freedom Movement, and the PKK, which carried out the “burning of arms” action, have openly demanded the right to hope. But the government, as the responsible authority, has given no assurance that it will take such a step. By “assurance,” I do not mean negotiating a peace process, but fulfilling obligations.
Because Turkey is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, it is obliged to act on the right to hope. If we relate it to a peace or negotiation process, then Turkey must return to a line that complies with its own Constitution and international conventions—and even move beyond that to a more democratic position. One of the first indicators of this would be reforming aggravated life sentences and abolishing categorical bans on conditional release.
If, as you noted, Turkey has taken no positive steps in this time, what decision could the Committee of Ministers reach?
We need to approach this issue comprehensively. Politically and legally, the Committee of Ministers is not the only authority. The entire Council of Europe structure must be engaged, not just the Committee of Ministers. There is an ECtHR judgment, and the Committee supervises its execution, but other bodies deal with legislative processes. For example, the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, and other committees within the Council also have monitoring powers. In this context, it becomes necessary to use all structures of the Council.
Looking at Turkey, the main venue for resolution is the Grand National Assembly, where political parties must wage a serious struggle. As the Kurdish people know from experience, all rights and freedoms with a legal basis must be fought for everywhere. And the Kurdish people have won their fundamental rights and freedoms through their own struggle. That is why this struggle must continue in all arenas.
Turning back to the Committee: if we examine its timeline and monitoring of this case group, we must criticize it. The ECtHR issued the Öcalan (No. 2) judgment in 2014, followed by the Kaytan, Gurban, and Boltan cases. In 2015, the Committee placed these under an “enhanced procedure,” meaning closer monitoring. Yet from 2015 until 2021, the Committee did not put this case group on its agenda.
Only after Turkish civil society organizations, through Rule 9.2 submissions, engaged in 2021 did the Committee start closer monitoring. Even then, not very rigorously. The Gurban group was discussed at the November/December 2021 meeting, and then only again at the September 2024 meeting.
Now it is September 2025. The Committee meets quarterly, and Turkey is always on the agenda, but the Gurban group has not been addressed regularly. For the Committee to push Turkey to act, it must first fulfill its own function. Not giving Turkey a deadline until 2024 has weakened our ability to pressure Turkey. If those deadlines had been set earlier, we could exert stronger pressure today. But because the deadline expired only this month, only now can we technically say to Turkey, “you have not taken a step.” So the Committee itself has failed to fulfill its function. Still, despite these shortcomings, the Committee does have enforcement powers, and we can look at other cases for comparison.
What kind of interim decision do you think will come out of this meeting?
The Committee will likely announce an interim decision, and we expect it to do so. That decision will probably repeat previous general resolutions. Looking at the Committee’s practice, ideally expectations should be higher, but realistically, it is more likely that the Committee will restate earlier decisions: take steps, change your law, share your actions as an Action Plan, provide statistics, etc.
However, as lawyers working in human rights and as Kurds, we also expect the Committee to adopt a resolution showing it is committed to the process. How that is worded diplomatically is up to the Committee, but explicitly stating in the interim decision that it supports the process, in legal and diplomatic language, would strengthen the Committee’s function.
It would also strengthen our hand politically and legally. That is why, rather than a purely technical decision, we would prefer expressions showing the Committee’s ownership of the process. But we do not see a strong likelihood of this.
As for expectations, we say they should not be too high because, as I said earlier, had the Committee issued an interim decision earlier, we could have applied stronger pressure on Turkey.
Finally, what happens if Turkey takes no steps after the Committee announces its interim decision?
If Turkey refuses to act even after the Committee’s interim decision, then other sanctions may follow, for example, the infringement procedure, suspension of Turkey’s voting rights, or placing Turkey under closer supervision. These are possibilities with legal grounds that can be discussed in the future. We can also compare with the Kavala case in this regard.