JUST FILED: A brief on academic freedom has been filed at the European Court of Human Rights today in the “Academics for Peace” case (Kamuran AKIN v. Turkey and 42 other applications , Application nos. 72796/16, 72798/16, 72799/16 et al). The third party intervention was presented by Profs. Helen Duffy and Philip Leach (co-supervisors in the Turkey Litigation Support Project) on behalf of a group of leading academics, addressing the nature of academic freedom, its significance for human rights and democracy and its legal protection in international law.
The case emerges from a statement issued on 11 January 2016 by a group of academics from diverse Turkish universities, entitled “We will not be a party to this crime,” which critically questioned the Turkish Government’s role in the conflict in South-east Turkey and associated serious rights violations. The day after the “Academics for Peace Petition” was published, President Erdoğan described signatories as “so-called intellectuals” and “pseudo academics” and accused them of treason. This was followed by their public vilification as “terrorists,” and they were subject to disciplinary, administrative and criminal proceedings across the country. Following the subsequent July 2016 coup, hundreds of academics, including the applicants, were then dismissed from their university positions through a series of emergency decrees.
The brief filed today focuses first on the nature of ‘academic freedom,’ embracing individual and institutional autonomy from the state, and a public and social role for academia (informing healthy democratic discourse including criticism of government), both of which preclude requiring ‘loyalty’ to the state, as the Turkish authorities purport to do. The brief explains the significance of academic freedom for the array of human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and broader international human rights law - for the academics directly affected, for a full range of rights of many others, and for the fundamental values underpinning the ECHR and democratic systems. The intervention calls for the Court’s considered attention to the issue of academic freedom which remains relatively underexplored in ECHR jurisprudence. It indicates the significant implications of the issue for the interpretation and application of the ECHR: informing states’ ‘positive obligations’ to create an ‘enabling environment’ for academic expression, and requiring a strict approach to permissible restrictions on rights, which must be a) provided for in clear foreseeable law, b) strictly necessary and proportionate, and c) subject to meaningful remedies and review. The legal framework, and procedural judicial deficits within Turkey, suggest that no element of this criteria is met. The brief also questions whether restrictions on academic freedom of the sort at issue in this case are related to the ‘emergency’ declared following the attempted coup in July 2016. It urges the Court to consider whether, instead, the clampdown in fact pursued an ‘ulterior purpose’, as academics are the latest in a line of societal actors to be targeted for their expression of opposition to the Turkish government.
The brief calls on the Court to robustly apply the ECHR and international standards to safeguard academic autonomy and freedom of expression on matters of public concern. The issue is timely and pressing in the context of alarming growth in attacks on academic freedom in Turkey and around the globe, and its insidious implications for closing democratic space.
The third party intervention filed on 20 12 2021 is here, the list of interveners here.