Abstract:

The right to be informed of the accusation is not explicitly stated in the Turkish Constitution. According to the Turkish Constitutional Court, the right to be informed of the accusation derives from Article 36 of the Constitution. However, in Article 6 (3) (a) of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention), it is clearly regulated as a right for the suspect/ accused to be informed of accusation. According to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the guarantees set out in Article 6 paragraph 3 of the Convention are specific aspects of the right to a fair trial referred to in paragraph 1. For this reason, a trial in which the suspect/defendant is not informed of the accusation cannot be said to be fair. The Turkish Constitutional Court took into consideration the Convention and the relevant ECtHR decisions in determining the constitutional foundations of the right to be informed of the accusation and the constitutional guarantees it provides. In this sense, the right to be informed of the accusation as a constitutional guarantee, and as an element of the right to a fair trial, has been embodied in Turkish law by the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. This article will evaluate the right to be informed of the accusation within the framework of the guarantees provided by the Turkish Constitution and the Convention in light of the decisions and judgments of the Constitutional Court and the ECHR. It concludes that the right to be informed of the accusation as a constitutional guarantee provides minimum guarantees, and suggests the implementation of the Turkish Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides far more guarantees in this regard.

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