Lawsuit before the Council of State: Turkish Ministry of Justice 'has effectively turned into a public prosecutor's office'

Lawyer Ömer Faruk Eminoğlu has challenged before the Turkish Council of State the administrative decision establishing seven new units within the Ministry of Justice, demanding their annulment for violating the law.

The contested units include: "Judicial Secretariats", "Natural Disasters and Accidents", "Investigation of Crimes with Unknown Perpetrators", "Public Order", "Digital Space Security and Combating Disinformation", "Organized, Drug and Economic Crimes", and "Terrorism Crimes, Their Financing and Money Laundering".

The petition noted that these units — announced on 23 April by Minister of Justice Akın Gürlek and established with the signature of Deputy Minister Can Tuncay — were not published in the Official Gazette, and that Eminoğlu only learned of them on 14 September through social media posts, after which he filed his challenge within the legal deadline.

The petition relied on Articles 38 and 41 of Presidential Decree No. 1, affirming that the Ministry of Justice does not have the authority to establish these units in the absence of an explicit text granting it such powers. It recalled that Article 157 of the Code of Criminal Procedure guarantees the confidentiality of preliminary investigations "even vis-à-vis the Ministry of Justice itself".

The petition stated that the ministry, since the establishment of these units, has begun receiving files from prosecutor's offices and courts and updating their course, in a reference to the files concerning the deaths of Kaşif Közünoğlu and Mehmet Arif Denizolgun. Eminoğlu concluded that "the Ministry of Justice has effectively turned into Turkey's public prosecutor's office".

Available information indicated that the challenge petition was referred to the Tenth Chamber of the Council of State.