The Legal Case
How an independent presidential candidacy was blocked in Turkey, and where the case stands today. Every claim below rests on a dated official document, linked at the foot of this page.
In brief. In March 2025 I began a campaign to stand as an independent candidate for the Presidency of Turkey. The constitution allows this, on condition that 100,000 citizens sign in support. In practice those signatures must be given in person, at a district election board, within a window that has lasted five to six days.
I asked the Supreme Election Council for four procedural changes. It rejected the request in a single day, then rejected it again three months later in a reasoned decision. The Constitutional Court declined jurisdiction, holding that decisions of the Supreme Election Council are placed outside judicial review by Article 79 of the constitution. Parliament's Petition Committee declined to consider the citizens' petition.
Domestic remedies being exhausted, the case is now before the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. A second application to the Supreme Election Council, filed in September 2025, has received no answer.
The Four Demands
These are the procedural changes requested in every application. None asks for special treatment. Each asks that a right the constitution already grants be exercisable in practice.
1. Signatures through e-Government
Citizens must currently appear in person at a district election board. Turkey's national e-Government platform already authenticates citizens for far more sensitive transactions.
2. A collection period of at least 90 days
The present window of five to ten days is not physically sufficient to gather 100,000 in-person signatures across the country.
3. Access for citizens living abroad
Roughly 3.4 million citizens abroad are excluded in practice, because signatures cannot be given at consulates.
4. A proportionate deposit
The required deposit of 2,000,000 Turkish lira, approximately one hundred times the monthly minimum wage, is not refunded.
Timeline
Public announcement of the independent candidacy campaign. The citizen support form opens.
Formal application to the Supreme Election Council (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu), setting out the four demands.
The application is rejected the next day by a short administrative letter (ref. 622.03-176962, signed by Deputy Chair Ekrem Özübek). The stated ground: the matters raised require legislation, so there is no action for the Council to take.
Individual application to the Constitutional Court (no. 2025/27404), alleging violation of the right to vote and to stand for election (Article 67) and of the prohibition on infringing the essence of a right (Article 13).
A citizens' petition campaign begins. Supporters are asked to file the same petition with the Council in their own names. Citizens in at least nine provinces do so, by registered electronic mail, by post and in person.
Faced with the volume of citizen petitions, the Council convenes its full board (Chair Ahmet Yener and ten members) and issues reasoned decision no. 2025/242, rejecting all four demands unanimously.
Three demands are refused on the ground that they require legislation. On the fourth, the extension of the signature period, the Council expressly acknowledged that the discretion lies with the Council itself under Article 8/A/9 of Law no. 6271, and then declined to exercise it, stating that there was no need to adopt a decision of principle on the matter.
That acknowledgement is the foundation of every subsequent legal step. The body with the power to remove the obstacle confirmed that it holds that power, and chose not to use it.
A petition signed by 415 citizens is submitted to the Petition Committee of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (no. D28-21797).
The Constitutional Court declares the application inadmissible for lack of jurisdiction ratione materiae. Its reasoning: acts that the constitution places outside judicial review, under Article 79, cannot be the subject of an individual application. With this decision, domestic remedies are exhausted.
The Bureau of the Parliamentary Petition Committee decides (no. 12426) that the petition cannot be examined by the Committee, under Rule 116/1 of the Rules of Procedure. Under Rules 116/2 and 116/3 the petition is forwarded to the Speaker of Parliament and to the Presidency, and the decision is printed and distributed to members of parliament.
A second application is filed with the Supreme Election Council (no. 375190), requesting that the election calendar be announced without delay and the candidacy process opened.
On the same day the case moves to the international level. Applications are filed with the European Court of Human Rights and with the UN Human Rights Committee.
The second application to the Supreme Election Council remains unanswered after more than seven months. The proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee are pending.
Grounds Invoked
European Court of Human Rights
The application, filed on 15 September 2025, alleges three violations:
- Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, the right to free elections.
- Article 14 taken together with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, discrimination between independent candidates and candidates nominated by political parties.
- Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the disproportionate interference with property represented by a non-refundable deposit of 2,000,000 Turkish lira.
Admissibility. Article 35 of the Convention requires the exhaustion of domestic remedies. The Supreme Election Council rejected the application on 18 April 2025. The Constitutional Court rejected the individual application for lack of jurisdiction, by a decision served on 4 September 2025, on the ground that decisions of the Council are not subject to its review. No domestic remedy remained. The six-month period runs from the date of service.
A request for priority treatment was made under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, on the grounds that the forthcoming election calendar may be affected and that the problem is structural in nature. The application also seeks compensation for campaign expenditure, domestic legal costs, non-pecuniary damage, and the costs of the proceedings.
UN Human Rights Committee
The communication invokes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
- Article 2, the right to an effective remedy.
- Article 25, the right to take part in public affairs and to be elected.
- Article 26, equality before the law and protection against discrimination.
Comparison with Other Democracies
A signature requirement is not unusual in itself. Its scale, and the time allowed to meet it, are.
| Country | Signatures or endorsements | Period | Given by |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | 500 | about 4 weeks | Elected officials, such as mayors and members of parliament (parrainage) |
| Austria | 6,000 | about 6 weeks | Citizens, signing at municipal offices |
| Turkey | 100,000 | 5 to 6 days | Citizens, in person at a district election board only |
What this means arithmetically. With a six-day window and roughly nine working hours a day, about fifty-four hours in all, gathering 100,000 in-person signatures nationwide requires a sustained rate of approximately 1,850 signatures an hour. Even distributed across some 973 district election boards, and combined with the requirement that every citizen attend in person, the result is a procedure that cannot realistically be completed, while a national e-Government infrastructure that could carry it sits unused.
The applications also refer to the standards of the Venice Commission, under which the number of signatures required should not exceed one per cent of the electorate and the collection period should be at least thirty to sixty days.
Source Documents
The documents are published in the original Turkish. Personal data, including addresses and identification numbers, has been redacted.
The complete record is maintained in Turkish at the legal process page.
For journalists and researchers
I am available for interviews in Turkish or English, and can provide the procedural history in full to journalists and human rights organisations on request.