Strasbourg, 22/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 21 July, Thorbjorn Jagland, the secretary general of the Council of Europe (CoE), announced that Turkey had informed him of its desire to use Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to derogate from some of its arrangements.
Article 15 states that: “In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation any High Contracting Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under this Convention to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with its other obligations under international law.” Turkey's decision to use this article comes within the context of the state of emergency that was declared for a period of three months in the country on Wednesday 20 July by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This could nevertheless be shortened to a month and a half, according to Turkey's prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus.
Jagland stated that the use of Article 15 did not in any way exempt states from respecting certain inalienable rights and freedoms guaranteed by the convention: the right to life, the ban on torture and inhumane and degrading treatment, the ban on slavery, and the principle of penalty without a law.
The ECHR will still be applied in Turkey, Jagland stated, and the European Court of Human Rights will therefore continue to examine the complaints that are sent to it and will assess how the measures taken conform with CoE standards, taking account of the criterion of proportionality. The Turkish government will moreover have to inform Jagland of all measures taken as part of this derogation that is used in the context of the state of emergency.
Although implementation of Article 15 is not new, it remains exceptional because since the adoption of the ECHR in 1953, Article 15 has only been used ten times. The most recent cases are those of Ukraine in June 2015 against the backdrop of the conflict in Donbas and Crimea, and of France, which used the article after the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015. Meanwhile, the UK used Article 15 between the end of 1988 and the beginning of 2001 in the context of the armed struggle in Northern Ireland. Turkey has already used the article - in 1990 due to the fight in the south-east of the country between security forces and the rebels of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)