Turkey’s top judges paid a visit to the headquarters of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg on the day Saadet Yüksel, the new judge from Turkey, assumed her post, the Hürriyet Daily News reported.
Zühtü Arslan, head of the Constitutional Court; İsmail Rüştü Cirit, head of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals (Yargıtay); and Zerrin Güngör, head of the Council of State (Danıştay), attended the swearing-in ceremony held at the ECtHR building. Kaan Esener, the permanent representative of Turkey to the Council of Europe, also attended the event hosted by ECtHR President Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos.
Yüksel replaced Işıl Karakaş, the previous Turkish judge at the ECtHR, after three candidate lists were rejected. The 36-year-old Harvard graduate is the youngest judge to serve at the European rights court.
According to Deutsche Welle Turkish service, the ECtHR had not announced in advance that Turkey’s top judges would attend the ceremony.
The DW report also indicated that the high level attendance from the Turkish judiciary is unprecedented in the history of the ECtHR and that it could be interpreted to indicate the importance Turkey places on the court.