The Justice Ministry of Turkey stated, they are drafting new policies that can limit visits of lawyers in the detainees suspected of terrorism and organized crimes acts. The proposed steps are based on the protocols that are already in place and restrict access to one visit of 40-60 minutes per week, the majority of meetings being held behind the glass divisions using the telephone system.
In the existing practice, the detainees are allowed to have four visits with attorneys every month, with three of those visits being under controlled circumstances. Other time restrictions put in place in facilities like Tuzla Removal Centre have been 15 minutes group consultation in some of the high risk cases. The recent suggestion of the ministry would possibly lessen the number of visits and increase the approval of the measures taken against individuals who will be divided into the category of potential security risks.
According to the officials, the changes are to be performed in order to avoid the illegal contact of the detainees with the outside world. But legal observers consider the move as part of a more general rebalancing of procedural protections which has been in progress since the events of the 2016 coup attempt.
Anti-Terror Legislation and Article 7(2)
Turkey’s Anti-Terrorism Law, particularly Article 7(2), has served as the principal legal instrument underpinning prosecutions of both suspects and their legal representatives. Since 2020, multiple members of the Progressive Lawyers’ Association and Özgürlük için Hukukçular Derneği have been convicted under provisions criminalizing alleged propaganda or support for terrorist organizations.
In February 2026, some of the lawyers with these associations were sentenced to one year and three months connected to their practice. A defense attorney is said to have spent close to three years in solitary incarceration prior to sentencing. These instances demonstrate how anti-terror laws have been over and over again crossing into the defense role itself.
In January 2025, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights, Mary Lawlor, said that it was worrying and contradicted international commitments that counter-terrorism legislation was used against human rights defenders. The Turkish officials are refuting the description and state that prosecutions are evidence-driven and objective.
Procedural Shifts Since 2016
In July 2016, after the unsuccessful attempt of the coup, over 4,000 judges and prosecutors were fired or relocated. There was a shift in the institutional dynamics through the reorganization of the judiciary, and some critics claim that the practices of the emergency era were institutionalized.
The barriers of access have moved outside the courtroom rooms into the pre-trial detention stages. First contact with lawyers, as required under European norms not to be delayed after arrest has been made, has been postponed in terrorism cases to take place more than 48 hours. The visits will be registered by monitoring systems and in some cases the government can limit the number of lawyers that can be allowed to represent a detainee.
International Standards and Compliance Questions
The European Court of Human Rights, notably in Salduz v. Turkey, established that access to legal counsel from the initial stages of police interrogation is a core component of a fair trial. As of late 2025, approximately 300 Turkey-related cases concerning procedural rights remained pending before the Strasbourg court.
Although Turkey is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, loopholes of implementation occur. In 2025, monitoring bodies of the council of Europe said that overcrowding and administrative logjams were some of the factors that made access to lawyers take a long time, especially in cases of terrorism investigations.
Monitoring by UN and Legal Organizations
Most recent convictions of Turkish lawyers have attracted criticism by international bodies such as the International Commission of Jurists and the New York City Bar Association who have labeled them as retaliations that relate to professional obligations. All these fears have been reflected by domestic bar associations, which cautioned that a series of restrictions may undermine trust in the adversarial system.
The Turkish officials respond that the actions are a reflection of other NATO jurisdictions where there is a restricted communication environment with classified or high-security prisoners. The government sticks to the rationale that the national security requirements can be satisfied by considered restraints particularly where the intelligence evaluation reveals an effort to pass on coded directives through lawful consultations.
Security Rationales and Government Positioning
The representatives of the Justice Ministry present the proposed Access Barriers as the reaction to the reported abuses. As of 2025, reports by the Interior ministry quoted about 150 thwarted plans that were allegedly organized out of detention centers and the authorities claimed that some visits to lawyers have been used as channels.
The reforms are also associated by the government by the current threats by the Kurdistan Workers Party and the network with the Gulen movement which is labeled by Ankara as FETO. The officials claim that the overlapping between terrorism and organized crime requires the consistency of the same communication control among the categories of detainees.
The proposal has been taken forward at cabinet-level without significant discussion in parliament, which has been typical of an executive-led style of security legislation that has defined the last couple of years. The media pro-government represent the changes as administrative reforms but not structural reforms.
Impact on the Legal Profession and Defense Capacity
According to the information provided by the Turkish bar association, about 1,200 lawyers have been subjected to anti-terror prosecution in 2025, two times higher since 2023. Members of the Progressive Lawyers Association among others have been convicted leading to protests in Ankara and Istanbul which have attracted thousands of legal professionals.
These trends are coupled with a wider range of judicial turnover. In 2025, European Union developments reports voiced apprehensions against being independent after a colossal post-2016 sackings. The coming together of prosecutions and procedural restrictions has raised controversy in the community of law of the country.
Public Defender Workload and Case Preparation
It is currently estimated that 70 percent of the cases related to terrorism are handled by public defenders. The amount of caseloads per year is often more than 200 files on a single attorney as reported by professional associations. Fewer visits per case will add additional limitations on time to prepare, especially in complicated cases with digital evidence and more than one defendant.
According to defense attorneys, it is hard to have confidential strategy discussions through glass-partition and telephone-based consultations. Even though the government claims that data cannot be monitored without judicial approval, the image of the surveillance can affect the communication patterns.
Broader Political and Regional Context
The security reconsiderations in Turkey are in the context of new geopolitical rebalancing. The 2025 framework of migration cooperation between the European Union and Ankara included the language of the rule-of-law, but the process of accession is also effectively frozen. In the meantime, the instability in the region in Syria and Iraq has perpetuated the counterterrorism pressures along the Turkish borders.
The environment is also molded by domestic political factors. The 2025 prosecutorial discretion became more controversial with high-profile municipal actors being investigated. Bystanders report that there is a tendency of an increase of security during election years, but officials disagree that there is a political agenda.
Comparisons to other states in the region indicate different paths. Whereas sanctions have been imposed on other governments in the context of attacking legal professionals, the membership of NATO and strategic positioning of Turkey make it more difficult to respond to. Foreign allies prefer dialogue as opposed to sanctions.
As draft regulations move toward formal adoption, the trajectory of Access Barriers will hinge not only on statutory language but on day-to-day implementation within detention facilities. The interplay between security doctrine and procedural safeguards will determine whether these reforms recalibrate the balance between state protection and defense rights, or whether they deepen a transformation of Turkey’s justice system whose long-term implications are still unfolding.
