It is commonly believed that, in the police practices of arrest without judicial warrant and detention without charge, England and Turkey stand at opposite ends of the compliance spectrum among nations signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. This is the first book to examine the extent to which such belief is warranted.
Beginning with a detailed comparison of the arrest and detention standards set by the Convention and the corresponding provisions of Turkish and English law, the author then proceeds to investigate actual police practice in both countries. He reviews and analyzes the existing research in England and Wales on how the status of suspects in practice compares with the status of suspects in law. To determine this in Turkey, where no such research existed before this book, he offers the results of his own field work in 21 Turkish police stations and three gendarmeries in various cities and towns, as well as in two Turkish anti-terrorist departments. This is the first publication of any research into how Turkish police apply law to practice. He goes on to examine the adequacy and effectiveness of remedies in both countries, and to make recommendations, not only for reform in England and Turkey, but to the Convention organs with respect to gaps and weaknesses in their case law.
For criminal justice and law enforcement authorities, this is a valuable guide to ensuring compliance with the extensive and developed standards established by the case law of the Convention, and to handling allegations of breaches of the Convention by the police. In addition, Arrest and Detention Powers in Turkish and English Law and Practice in the Light of the European Convention on Human Rights is a penetrating analysis of `law in books' versus `law in action', and as such has relevance to anyone concerned with the enforcement of human rights law.