Inappropriate use of remand

Jurists, making reference to remand orders, have described penal benches of the peace as “the ruling party’s offices.” They have said that remand we serving the purposes of “belittlement, correction and chastisement.” Mehmet Ümit Erdem, one of the lawyers of our paper’s remanded columnists and managers pointed out that a penal bench of the peace judge he had chatted with in the judicial complex in Çağlayan had said, “We do not order release as a matter of course unless a request comes from the prosecution,” and said that, “If a person who returns of their own will from abroad is remanded on flight risk grounds that is the imposition of a punishment.”
We take a stab in the dark
Erdem, stating that the judicial system is in a very parlous state, noted that the number of people to be released on objection is very small. Erdem, indicating he had heard penal bench of the peace judges at Çağlayan rule as a matter of course to deny objections, elaborated as follows: “A judge I was chatting with said, ‘Unless there is something very special, we do not order release as a matter of course unless a request comes from the prosecution. As far as other decisions go, for example to block access, the office examines these. They automatically order extensions.’ We take a stab in the dark and object on general principles or based on what we hear during interrogation.”
One truckload of data is waiting
Erdem, saying that there is one truckload of digital data awaiting examination at Istanbul Police Data Processing Branch, said, “Examination of the data is awaited to enable the trial to be commenced. Previously, objections went to the nearest serious crime court but now they go to and fro between ten penal benches of the peace. You cannot speak of independent review. And so it is impossible to get a result. When they set them up, they didn’t even call them courts but benches. It is a structure directly established around a person. They can take anybody they want prisoner as things stand.”
Operation to intimidate opponents
Ayhan Erdoğan, one of the lawyers of our columnists and managers, voicing the view that penal benches of the peace are a structure for the ruling party to intimidate its opponents, said, “There is no aspect of them that bears comparison with the interrogatory benches in the 12 September period. It is open to debate whether penal benches of the peace can conduct fair trials in penal law matters. The restricted nature of this structure is a pointer that it will not be fair. This is a judicial activity that has been taken under control.”