The plea/ defence immunity for lawyers

Defamation has been recognized as a crime against honour in the Penal Code of the Republic of Turkey. The plea/defence immunity has been recognized as a defence of justification for what might otherwise be action which amounts to the crime of defamation. This immunity is based on the right to legal remedies, the right of petition and the protection of freedom of expression and dissemination of thought in the Constitution. In the first section of this thesis, the notion, general content and legal character of the plea/defence immunity are evaluated with regard to the legal profession of lawyers. Here a differentiation is made between the notion of plea/defence immunity and the lawyer's exclusive right of audience and immunity from the legal process, and also a comparison is made with parliamentary immunity. The second section focuses on the legal conditions of the plea/defence immunity, the criminal law practice and the disciplinary practice of bar associations, as well as the interaction between these. In the third and last section of this work, lawyers' freedom of speech, while performing their profession, is studied in the light of decisions delivered by the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Bearing in mind the conditions of the plea/defense immunity, this section aims/endeavours to explore the characteristics of each and every concrete incident by reference to the main classification of this work and the chilling effect on freedom of expression of lawyers.