In the case of Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu v. Türkiye the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to a speedy review of the lawfulness of detention.

The applicants in this case, two former co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) currently in prison, complained that they had not had effective legal assistance in order to appeal against their pre-trial detention, on account of the prison authorities’ surveillance of their meetings with their lawyers and the seizure of the documents exchanged with them.

The Court found that the domestic courts had not demonstrated the existence of exceptional circumstances that could justify derogating from the core principle of the confidentiality of the applicants’ meetings with their lawyers, and that the breach of lawyer-client privilege had deprived the applicants of effective assistance from their lawyers.

• Press release