Human rights at work: The experience of The Turkish Constitutional Court

Abstract

The article presents an account of the use of human rights litigation in the employment context through the lens of the Turkish Constitutional Court's (TCC) case law, focusing on the two core human rights of freedom of expression and the right to respect for private and family life under the individual application remedy. The main argument of the article is that the elevation of employees’ free speech and privacy concerns in employment relations, from an understanding and examination based on the employment contract to a constitutional level of review due to the availability of the individual application procedure, allows employees to confront employer-imposed restrictions that may infringe their constitutionally protected human rights. Direct access to the TCC potentially provides greater safeguards for employees' enjoyment of core human rights at work and beyond. At the same time, it is crucial not to magnify the role of individual applications in providing constitutional human rights protection to employees mainly because of procedural requirements.