Euro court rejects case of dismissed Turkish judge

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on March 10 turned down a case brought by a Turkish judge dismissed over alleged links to the failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt, widely believed to have been masterminded by the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). 

Kadriye Çatal, a judge at the Ankara Labor Court, was dismissed over suspected links to the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen. 

Çatal claimed she did not have access to a court in Turkey amid the ongoing state of emergency and thus did not have an effective remedy before a national authority to assert her rights regarding her dismissal.    
   
However, according to the ECHR decision, Çatal did not in fact exhaust domestic remedies as she could challenge her dismissal at Turkey’s Supreme Court and later, if necessary, at the Constitutional Court.  
      
The ECHR also ruled that countries may take such decisions during a state of emergency due to national security concerns, and stressed that all domestic legal routes should be tried first.        

Turkey declared a three-month state of emergency days after the deadly coup attempt and has since extended it a number of times.