ABTTF President: “As the Turkish community in Western Thrace, we too are directly experiencing the negative consequences of the systematic violation of the rule of law in our country. Our country’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, disregards the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments concerning the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases. For over 17 years, our country has failed to execute the ECtHR judgments concerning our associations, disregarding its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which it is a party, and the rule of law’’.
Stefanos Loukopoulos, Director of the Athens-based independent parliamentary monitoring and democracy watchdog organisation ‘‘Vouliwatch’’, noted in an interview broadcast on TPP TV on 7 October 2025 that, unfortunately, violations of the rule of law in Greece are no longer reported in the news.
In the interview, which discussed the fourth annual report on the rule of law in Greece by Vouliwatch’s independent monitoring platform Govwatch, Loukopoulos pointed out that the normalisation of violations of the rule of law in Greece and the public’s failure to respond appropriately to this situation is alarming and dangerous.
“We fully share the concerns of Stefanos Loukopoulos, Director of Vouliwatch, regarding the state of the rule of law in our country Greece. In recent years, a series of legal scandals, transparency issues and lack of accountability in our country have deeply shaken the citizens’ trust in the government and official institutions. The government has unfortunately failed to protect the rule of law, which is indispensable to democracy, and has been explicitly criticised in the relevant annual reports of the European Commission. As the Turkish community in Western Thrace, we are also directly experiencing the negative consequences of the systematic violation of the rule of law in our country. Our country’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, disregards the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments on the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases. For over 17 years, our country has failed to execute the ECtHR judgments concerning our associations, disregarding its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which it is a party, and the rule of law”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
