The powers of defense counsel in Turkish law in light of ECHRdecisions

There are various powers granted to the defense counsel, who is a subject within the defense in criminal proceedings. Within the framework of the principle of fair trial and the effective use of the right to defense, what these powers should be and what limitations they should be subject to continue to be discussed. In order to give an accurate answer to this question, first of all, the meaning of the institution of defense counsel and the legal status of the defense counsel should be revealed. However, in the studies conducted so far in the doctrine, the institution of the defense counsel has been evaluated within a general framework and each of the powers has been handled independently. For this reason, some debates regarding the powers of the defense counsel have not been resolved satisfactorily or contradictions have occurred between the accepted approaches. In order to address these problems in depth, it is necessary to systematically examine not only the defense counsel but also his/her powers. In this context, each power should not be considered independently, but as part of a whole, and its relationship with each other should be clearly revealed. In this study, a new paradigm has been created by subjecting the powers of the defense counsel to a tripartite classification and the principles of the model have been explained and the nature of each power has been discussed in line with the case law of the ECHR.