The AKP government is planning to reduce the maximum period of detention to 7 and a half years, in order to prevent the Constitutional Court's landmark judgment that found the 10 year pre-trial custody period "unacceptably long for a democratic state" opening the way to mass releases.

According to an article in Cumhuriyet paper the AKP government has begun to draw up new legal provisions as regards long custody periods in order to block the release of remand prisoners following the Constitutional Court's ruling. In August this year the Constitutional Court found the 10 year pre-trial detention period in article 10 of the Anti-Terror Law, which is the legal basis cited for persons accused of terror offences, to be "unacceptably long for a democratic state". The Constitutional Court gave the government 1 year to introduce new legal provisions, and Cumhuriyet claims that by August 2014 a new provision will make the maximum pre-trial detention period 7 and a half years.

It is thought that the AKP government is considering a change to article 10 of the Anti-Terror Law, whereby, instead of the present "double the custody period in the procedural code to be implemented", a new wording will be introduced so that it will read "an additional half of the custody period will be implemented", in which case the maximum custody period will be reduced from 10 years to 7 and a half years.

While the Ministry of Justice has yet to make a statement, according to information received from various sources the AKP government will bring the legislation to parliament immediately after the local elections.

Provisions regarding long pre-trial detention is of particular interest to those in cases such as the 'KCK main case' and other KCK trials, where the accused have been in custody for close to five years. In the KCK main case which is continuing in Diyarbakır Kurdish politicians on remand will have been in prison for 5 years by April 2014.  

The judge must give reasons for remand in custody

The Constitutional Court has also reached another significant judgment, finding that judges at Serious Criminal Courts who reject applications for release without any legal justification have committed a violation.  The Court upheld the applications of Firaz Aslan and Hebat Aslan, who were remanded in custody 5 years ago on a charge of membership of a terrorist organisation, saying the court had "made a decision for your continued custody without giving a legal reason", and awarded them a total of 8,200 lira in compensation. The Constitutional Court judgment found that the applicants had been "deprived of their freedom for insufficient reasons", and that the time they had spent in custody "could not be considered reasonable".