On Wednesday 25 March 2026, Prof. Philip Leach appeared in a Grand Chamber hearing at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of Kavala v. Türkiye (no. 2).
The case concerned an application by human rights defender Osman Kavala, a Turkish national who had been deprived of his liberty since 2017. A 2019 judgment found his imprisonment to be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and indicated that the respondent State (Turkey) was to put an end to his detention.
In July 2022 the Court held that Turkey had failed to fulfil its obligation to comply with the 2019 judgment, as Mr Kavala had not been released.
In this new application, the applicant alleges violations of Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment), 5 (right to liberty and security), 6 (right to a fair trial), 7 (no punishment without law), 10 (freedom of expression), 11 (freedom of assembly and association) and 18 (limitation on use of restriction of rights) of the Convention.
Philip acts for Osman Kavala alongside Başak Çalı, Deniz Tolga Aytöre, and Ebru Demiralp Bekir.
Click here to view the webcast of the hearing.
In May 2026, REDRESS published a Casebook on ‘Strategic Litigation Challenging Torture and Defending Dissent’, which discusses Kavala v. Türkiye as one of its case studies. Click here to read the report.
Click here to read a letter written in the Guardian in July 2026 by Philip and Başak Çalı regarding the repression of free speech in Turkey.