Minister Tunç: We must fight crime and criminals together as a nation: 'Violence against women is our red line'

Speaking at the opening of the courthouse annex building in Yalova, Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç emphasized that legislation has been updated in line with modern conditions over the last 22 years, stating, “We have made very important improvements in our legislation. The Turkish Penal Code and the Code of Obligations have all been renewed.

We have renewed all the legislation that had been in force for 80 years, which no longer met the needs of society and required renewal, within the last 22 years. Almost 20 years have passed since the penal code in 2005, and subsequently the criminal procedure, obligations, and civil courts laws. In this process, society is changing, and new types of crimes are emerging. We are in the internet age, so with the development of technology and the development of trade, as well as the changing needs of people, the need to update these laws has arisen.

We have carried out this update without delay until today. We did this in a planned manner with judicial reform strategy documents. With our Judicial Reform Strategy Document in 2009, we brought numerous judicial packages to the agenda of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and enacted them. The second was implemented in 2015 and the third in 2018. During this process, we have endeavored to make our legislation responsive to needs with the opinions received from both our citizens and our practitioners.

Now it is the turn of the fourth Judicial Reform Strategy Document. It will be the Judicial Reform document of the Century of Turkey. In this period when we are stepping into the second century of our Republic, we aim to implement numerous regulations that will meet the needs of society.

We are striving to implement these with the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary in the form of short, medium, and long-term goals,” he said.

"VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IS OUR RED LINE"

Expressing his sensitivity regarding violence against women and child abuse crimes, Minister Tunç said, “Here, we must act together as a nation, especially against crime and criminals. We must protect our children and our youth. We are in the internet age, and we sadly see an increase in certain types of crimes, especially with the influence of social media. Therefore, we will fight together against all of these, including fraud crimes and various crimes committed through informatics.

Together with our security forces, our police, our gendarmerie, and our judicial organization, we will strive to fight against crime and criminals and against criminal networks that disrupt the peace and security of society, within the legal order and without delay, based on the rule of law. There is an opinion among our legal experts that the thresholds for parole are very low, especially for some crimes that are constantly subject to criticism. Certain regulations can be made regarding those types of crimes.

Again, some limitations can be introduced regarding probation practices. We are very sensitive, especially about the prevention of child abuse and the minimization and eradication of femicides. Violence against women is our red line. We must protect our women. Any evil directed at our women is a betrayal of humanity. Any evil directed at our children is a betrayal of our future.

Children are the most vulnerable people against the evils around them. Each of them has mobile phones in their hands, and unfortunately, criminal networks hiding their identities are on the other side of those mobile phones. Therefore, we must fight them within the law by increasing our patrols even more effectively in terms of cybercrimes. The fight in that area is not exactly easy.

Because we can call it the irresponsibility of international social media companies that hide their identities in implementing judicial decisions. But we tell these companies this: The Republic of Turkey is a state of law; just as our citizens comply with the rules of the state of law, if you are providing services in this country, you will also comply with the legal rules of the Republic of Turkey,” he said.

News Source: İHA