An Analysis of the Individual Applications of Decisions Protecting Family and Preventing Violence Against Women
Gözde İbicioğlu, Bilge DurutürkThis article is conducted regarding decisions of the Turkish Constitutional Court protecting the justifications of trial courts through Law No. 6284 on Protecting Familiy and Preventing Violence Against Women. The article focuses on individual applications to the Constitutional Court about the sentences within the scope of Articles 4 and 5 regarding Law No. 6284. Hence, the aim is to analyze the infringement decisions by considering personal inviolability, the material and moral circumstances of the individual (Art. 17), and freedom to claim rights through the right to a fair trial and the right to a reasonable decision (Art. 36; Art. 38/4) from the Constitutional Court. The starting point of this article is the indirect result of a potential aggrievement of women who declare having been subjected to violence, due to which the Constitutional Court makes decisions regarding the violation of the individual rights of the person who was declared to be the perpetrator of violence as a result of the problems implementing Law No. 6284. Thus, this study scans individual applications to the Constitutional Court regarding the results of cases of violence against women from the official page of the Constitutional Court since Law No. 6284’s enactment. The Constitutional Court is seen to have decided 11 times that Law No. 6284 had been violated. This article analyzes the reasons for these violation decisions and presents the assumptions and suggestions from the decisions of the first-instance courts in the direction of judges needing to receive specialized in-service training for implementing Law No. 6284. The study aims to contribute to the development of the relevant law by taking it as a referential guide for evaluating the individual applications that are believed will increase in number in the future.
Bireysel Başvurularda Ailenin Korunması ve Kadına Karşı Şiddetin Önlenmesi Kararlarının İncelenmesi
Gözde İbicioğlu, Bilge DurutürkBu çalışma, 6284 sayılı Ailenin Korunması ve Kadına Karşı Şiddetin Önlenmesine Dair Kanun’un birinci derece mahkemeleri tarafından uygulanmasını ve buna yönelik Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin değerlendirmelerini kapsayan kararların bir analizidir. Bu analiz, Anayasa Mahkemesi’ne 6284 sayılı Kanun m 4 ve m 5 kapsamında haklarında çıkan kararlara yapılan bireysel başvurulara odaklanmaktadır. Bu paralelde çalışma, Anayasa Mahkemesi tarafından “kişinin dokunulmazlığı, maddi ve manevi varlığı (Anayasa m 17)” ile “hak arama hürriyeti (Anayasa m 36, m 38/4)” kapsamında adil yargılanma hakkı ve gerekçeli karar hakkı açısından verilen ihlal kararlarının tespiti ve değerlendirmesi üzerinedir. Çalışmanın asıl çıkış noktası da olan husus; 6284 sayılı Kanun’un uygulanması aşamasındaki aksaklıklar sebebiyle Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin şiddet uygulayanın bireysel haklarının ihlal edildiğine karar vermesi ve bu sebepten şiddete uğradığını beyan eden kadının dolaylı olarak ortaya çıkan potansiyel mağduriyetidir. Bu paralelde çalışmada ilgili yasa yürürlüğe girdiği günden bugüne kadar kadına karşı şiddet dava sonuçlarına yönelik Anayasa Mahkemesi’ne yapılan bireysel başvurular Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin resmi sayfasından taranmıştır. Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin on bir (11) ihlal kararı verdiği tespit edilmiştir. Bu ihlal kararlarındaki gerekçeler analiz edilerek birinci derece mahkemelerinin verdiği kararlarda 6284 sayılı Kanun’un uygulanmasında hakimlerin meslek içi özelleştirilmiş eğitim almaları ve bunların da uluslararası düzeyde kadına karşı şiddet, ailenin korunması ve toplumsal cinsiyet konularını kapsamasının gerekliliği yönünde tespit ve öneriler sunulmuştur. Çalışmanın ilerleyen dönemde sayıca artabileceği düşünülen bireysel başvuruların değerlendirilmesinde yol gösterici bir referans olarak alınarak ilgili kanunun geliştirilmesine katkı sağlaması hedeflenmiştir.
This article is conducted regarding decisions of the Turkish Constitutional Court protecting the justifications of trial courts through Law No. 6284 on Protecting Family and Preventing Violence Against Women. The article focuses on individual applications to the Constitutional Court about the sentences within the scope of Articles 4 and 5 regarding Law No. 6284.
Article 4 of the Turkish Constitution mainly involves protective cautionary decisions, and Article 5 addresses the preventive cautionary decisions judges are to make. Regarding cases involving Law No. 6284 in the courts of first instance, judges have declared potentially guilty persons to be the perpetrator of violence at sentencing by considering the victim’s declaration of violence as actual fact in cases where no concrete evidence is found. This situation is the issue this article addresses, as not applying the presumption of innocence to sentences may be cause for an unfair accusation of the potentially guilty person, and this appears as a violation of that person’s individual rights.
Based on the assumption of the article, this study examines the relationship between sentencing guidelines in Article 4 and in Article 5 with regard to Law No. 6284 as well as the objections presented to the Constitutional Court for evaluating the sentences received from the courts of first instance. First, the article selects the applications resulting from Law No. 6284 to the Constitutional Court, of which 22 applications were found. The article then identified the ones directly related Articles 4 and 5. Nine of these were found to be in violation of individual rights, two to not be in violation, and nine to have been declared expressly bereft of any merit.
The evaluations of the Constitutional Court were seen to mostly be based on considering personal inviolability, the individual’s material and moral circumstances, and the freedom to claim rights based on the right to a fair trial and the right of a reasonable decision. Hence, the categorization of the applications in this study’s analysis fall under three main frameworks: (1) a consideration of personal inviolability of the individual’s material and moral circumstances (Art.17), (2) freedom to claim rights based on the right to a fair trial and the right to a reasonable decision (Art. 36), and (3) presumption of innocence (Art. 38/4). The study summarizes the sentences from the courts of first instance under these three headings and then analyzes and discusses the decisions of the Constitutional Court.
Therefore, the argument of the article involves the indirect result of a potential aggrievement of women who declare having been subjected to violence, due to which the Constitutional Court then makes a decision regarding the violation of the individual rights of the person declared as the perpetrator of violence as a result of issues implementing Law No. 6284. Hence, this study aims to analyze the Constitutional Court’s violation decisions by considering the individual’s personal inviolability and material and moral circumstances of the individual (Art. 17), freedom to claim rights based on the right to a fair trial and the right to a reasonable decision, and the individual’s presumption of innocence (Art. 36; Art. 38/4).
As a result, the decisions of the Constitutional Court basically reveal that the language of the judge in the court of first instance needs to be corrected through gender sensitivity training. The remarks from the Constitutional Court declare that the usage of judges created an extra disadvantaged position for the victims of violence due to the claim of unfair accusations. The judges of the Constitutional Court very importantly needed to remain unbiased as the decision regarding the applications were based on the presumption of innocence.
Thus, this article’s analysis presents assumptions and suggestions for better implementing Law No. 6284 through the enquiry of violation decisions by the Constitutional Court. One effective method may involve a basic handbook for training judges, or face-to-face vocational training seminars. Those would be very efficient ways to solve the problem of rights violations from the start.