In Judge Dursun Genel's snug little courtroom, the feuding couples shuttle in and out with stories of exhausted dreams and unhappy marriages.
"We'll never have peace," a young woman recently told the judge, agreeing with her estranged husband that the only solution to their problems was divorce.
"But who will look after you?" Genel asked. "Under the law, you know, you have the right to make a financial claim."
"I don't want anything from him," the woman responded. "I just want you to make sure he doesn't threaten me anymore."
So it goes in Turkey's newly established family courts where women now have equal rights in marriage, and courts are obligated to put restraining orders on bullying spouses.
Family courts are just one product of the sweeping changes that have both transformed and swamped Turkey's legal system. An avalanche of new laws, geared to bring the nation closer to EU norms, has altered the way the state treats everything from police brutality and juvenile delinquents to commercial transactions and industrial pollution.
"We all have to work harder to stay abreast of the changes," said Genel, the chief judge of a district family court in downtown Ankara and the host of a new television show that teaches the public about the laws. "But there have been excellent steps taken, and I think, from the reaction I've seen, that society was ready for them."
The changes started three years ago but were accelerated under Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan, who has used a hefty parliamentary majority to rewrite hundreds of laws since taking office 21 months ago. In addition, a third of the articles in the Turkish Constitution have been amended.
The government's aim was to meet the eligibility criteria for starting membership talks with the EU, which required stronger protection of free speech and human rights, and greater civilian control over the powerful military.
As a result, Turkey abolished the death penalty and the feared state security court. It created intellectual property courts, consumer courts, juvenile courts and family courts.
Treason was redefined, police powers limited, criminal penalties revised, trademark laws created and press laws revamped.
In short, just about every field of law changed. Even the most experienced lawyers and judges have found themselves cramming like first-year law students and signing up for training seminars while cases pile up by the tens of thousands at courthouses.
While complaints about the substance of the changes have been few, the velocity has prompted concern.
"Nowhere in the world have so many laws that effect you from the day you are born until the day you die, been passed in such a rush," said Sezgin Tanrikulu, president of the bar association in Diyarbakir.
"Unfortunately the civil code that regulates social and civil life was issued and put into practice in one month and the new penal code changes will come into effect in six months," he said. "This is not enough time for either the judges or for society to adapt."
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS