Anonymous witness with in the frame of right to a fair trial

The esence of the criminal adjudicatin is to determine the absolute truth, befaore those whom can appear at the trial, without needing to disguise the identificatin of the witness and in paralel, by way of protecting the defendant's rights in the concept of fair trial. During the process of determining the absolute truth, the concept of anonymous witness, which is mainly applied in order to eliminate the perils involved marely due to the witness appearing at the trial, carries an exceptional element. Anonymous testimony, which isheard in a different procedure than the usual testimony, is damaging some of what we define as the defendant's rights such as the principle of transparency of hearings, the directness of adjudication, the equal treatment between witnesses testimonies and right to questioning. Therefore, in order to strike the balance between the need of protection of the anonymous witness which is the esence of anonymous testimony and right to fair trial and that should there be no need to call for an anonymous testimony from the point of adjudication; this unusual concept should not be resorted to. When examining the decisions ruled by the European Court of Human Rights relating to the concept is only accepted if it balances the limitations it brings to right to a fair trial with procedural guarantees provided therewith. However, even in this situation, it is also found in court decisions that the anonymous witness concept may not play a substantial role in the given final decision. In this respect, the opinion of the ECHR regarding evidence evaluation of the anonymous testimony in criminal adjudication obviously does not eliminate the damage that the anonymous testimony would cause to the rights of defendants as a whole. From this point of view, when considering the the Turkish Law , the regulations in relation to the anonymous testimony are scattered around both in the Witness Protection Act and Criminal Procedural Act and also relevant regulations; and that even these regulations, it is apparent that the anonymous testimony does not bring any solutions to the problems that are relevant to the right to a fair trial, rights of the defendants and so on. Therefore, the existing regulations should be revised by the lawmakers and new regulations should be made under the principle of rule of law, without resorting to anonymity. Keywords: Witness, Witness Protection, Anonymous Witness, Right to A Fair Trial, Defendant' s Rights.