Abstract
General curfews are imposed in Turkey due to the COVID-19 pandemic since early March. The Ministry of Interior grounded its competence on the Law on Provincial Administration and Law on General Protection of Public Health and issued directives for this purpose. However, imposing curfews with ministerial directions seems quite problematic based on these laws. Restricting fundamental rights and freedom requires compliance with the conditions listed in Article 13 of the Turkish Constitution as the state of emergency is not officially declared. Basic rights and freedom could be restricted for the reasons specified in the Constitution according to this article. In addition, restrictions should be based on laws accepted by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. These laws must specify the conditions in an obvious and predictable manner. These restrictions do not fulfill the requirements of legality, although it can be claimed that curfews are related to the reasons stated in relevant articles of the 1982 Constitution. The laws do not refer to curfews or similar restrictions explicitly, which are cited as the basis for curfews. They also do not contain guarantees such as scope, form, duration, or safeguards to be applied during the restrictions. It could be concluded that general curfews imposed in Turkey due to the COVID-19 pandemic are unconstitutional under these conditions.
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