A few days ago I had the pleasure of being inIstanbul meeting colleagues from 30 or more different countries who practice in my specialised area of family law. The sun shone and it was lovely to meet colleagues. It’s a wonderful city.
One separate meeting however with Turkish bar lawyers, organised by my colleagues fromParis and Geneva, brought home that we are very lucky in the UK where the rule of law applies. The worst things that have happened to me this week on my return to my central London office have been chasing client bills, getting back into complex cases post conference and wondering when the court will finally approve three or four outstanding orders in our funding-starved civil courts. The routine tiny challenges for a London legal professional.
But spare a thought please for the President of the Istanbul Bar and his board members. They are lawyers like you and me. But entirely unlike you and me they face the start this week in the Istanbul High Court of a criminal trial for disseminating terrorist propaganda, including the possibility of more than 10 years jail.
They have done nothing of the sort. The President of the Istanbul Bar is one of Turkey’s most respected constitutional lawyers, if you ask. What they did do, and nothing more nothing less, was as a bar board in December 2024, collectively call for an investigation into the deaths of two Turkish journalists reporting from inside Syria.
The Turkish state has an unpleasant recent history of attacking both journalists and lawyers. In recent months for example many Turkish lawyers have been harassed or even arrested for just going about the business of representing their clients. So I ask you please as most are fellow lawyers to look up the trial and happenings in Turkey and do what you can to support your local or national bar association in your home country on this topic.
You may find that your association are already sending representatives to witness trials. You may be surprised to read this, but in March 2025 the 46 member Council of Europe has ratified the first international Convention on the Protection of the Profession of Lawyers.
Sadly, what is going on in Turkey makes the need for this Convention urgent and obvious.