The Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Panel, consisting of judges and prosecutors who had completed the courses on “Asylum and European Convention on Human Rights” and “Combating human trafficking”, was held on 8 November in Ankara, in co-operation with the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of Justice of Turkey, under the action on “Strengthening the human rights protection of migrants and victims of human trafficking in Turkey”.

In their opening speeches, Deputy Head of Department of the Human Rights Department of Ministry of Justice, Ahmet Müşerref Yakışık and the Head of Co-Operations Programme Division of the Council of Europe, Lilja Gretarsdottir highlighted the importance of the courses for judges and prosecutors, having in mind the high number of migrants in Turkey.

Panel moderator, Ali Ersoy Kontacı, gave a general overview of the courses offered by the HELP online platform and presented the panel speakers. Panel participants Gizem Ceren Demir Koşan, rapporteur at the Constitutional Court, Mehmet Toprak, rapporteur judge at the Court of Cassation and Ersin Yılmaz, rapporteur judge at the Council of State, made presentations on the case-law of respected High Courts regarding migration and human trafficking issues.

After the presentations, a question-and-answer session was held. Participants posed questions to the panellists and shared their views on the HELP platform and also the HELP courses they completed.

The HELP Panel was organised within the framework of the action “Strengthening the human rights protection of migrants and victims of human trafficking in Turkey”, which is a part of the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.