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Issuing a joint statement, 12 bar associations criticized the Statutory Decree No. 696 that was issued on December 24, 2017 and noted that the statutory decree included many regulations that had no relevance to the State of Emergency.
Identical uniform regulation for prisoners
In their joint statement, Adıyaman Bar, Ağrı Bar, Batman Bar, Bingöl Bar, Diyarbakır Bar, Dersim Bar, Hakkari Bar, Kars - Ardahan Bar, Muş Bar, Urfa Bar, Şırnak Bar, and Van Bar specfically addressed the identical uniform regulations for prisoners introduced in the last statutory decree.
According to the new regulation, those who are arrested for or convicted of crimes that fall under the Anti-Terror Act must wear identical uniforms provided by the prison administration when they are being taken out of the prison premises to be brought to court.
The bar associations said:
"Identical uniform regulation is against human dignity and therefore violates the prohibition against treating arrestees or the convicted in a way that is not in accordance with human dignity.
"As we can also see through our painful experiences in the prisons following the September 12 military coup [in 1980, where a similar identical uniform regulation was introduced for prisoners leading to hunger strikes and ending with several deaths], this is a regulation that harms the public peace".
The bar associations also underlined that making identical uniforms obligatory for all prisoners, including the ones whose trials are still in process or those who have no definite conviction yet, also violates the principle of presumption of innocence.
"Exemption of civilians from legal proceedings"
The bar associations also criticized the other regulation introduced with the statutory decree that prescribes an "exemption of civilians from legal, administrative, financial and penal liabilities, who acted in order to suppress the July 15 coup attempt in 2016 and the terrorist activities in the wake of the coup attempt".
The associations characterized this regulation as a "special pardon that has no place in a state of law" and demanded that the State of Emergency regime be put an end to immediately. (AS/DG/LN)
