Transitional justice

Transitional law, or transitional justice, is known as one of the indispensable thresholds of peace processes. This is confronting the violations of rights, fighting to prevent them from happening again and planning the new period jointly.


ANF
NEWS CENTER
Sunday, December 21, 2025

One of the steps that Leader Apo considers most important for the new period is the transitional law laws, because it is a requirement of democratic integration. Leader Apo bases the law of democratic integration on three basic principles.

Although transitional law laws were heard for the first time in Turkey, they were actually heard in the 2nd Amendment. It emerged after World War II. The Nuremberg trials, in which the responsible and commanders of the Nazi Germany period were tried, took their place in history as the first application of transitional law law.

Transitional law laws and democratic integration complement each other. According to the definition of the UN; Transitional justice is all judicial and non-judicial measures to compensate for what happened in the past in a country where human rights violations are intense. Among the measures described here are truth commissions, reforms of security laws in particular, and reparations programs.

In fact, in his message shared on December 3, Leader Apo very clearly defined it as the 'law of transition to the century of peace' and said what he meant by the definition of transitional law. The important thing here is that every step, which should not be considered separately from each other, is reflected to the public as if they are different things.

After the 2nd World War, the process called transitional law, which was initiated to confront crimes against humanity and to have the right sanctions for human rights violations, was tried in many places, and what could happen in practical terms was more or less revealed. The courts, which were symbolized by the crimes of Nazi Germany after the war, and the steps taken against human rights violations were also the first practical steps of this period. Transitional justice refers to a process that is too complicated to be explained only by judicial sanctions and practices. The slightest mistake or incomplete step in this process is important that can lead to the complete destruction of the process.

There are some main topics defined for the transition period. These topics have emerged from the experiences of the transition period so far. We can list them as follows;

* Stop human rights violations

* Investigating past crimes

* Finding those responsible for human rights violations

* Imposing sanctions on those responsible

* Paying compensation to the victim

* Preventing breaches from happening in the future

* Permanent reforms in the security sector

* Peacekeeping and legitimizing

* Ensuring equal citizenship

* Accepting what happened in the past

* To ensure the transition to a better society

These do not mean the defeat or strength of one side; It is also incomplete and wrong to evaluate only through 'criminal law'.

TRANSITIONAL LAW IS NOT 'AMNESTY'

Another mistake that is frequently made in the Turkish public is the discussion of transitional laws under the title of 'amnesty'. However, it is not 'amnesty', it is the confrontation and reckoning with what has happened so far and putting the aftermath on the right ground. Reducing it to only 'amnesty' discussions actually casts a shadow on the seriousness and magnitude of the process being carried out.

In an interview on Nov. 28, KCK Executive Council Co-Chair Besê Hozat said, "PKK cadres do not want amnesty. We did not commit a crime, we fought for the existence and freedom of a people under genocide. These people are honorable people. Their eyes are not simply turning to their families. The 'category by crime' approach discussed is not understanding the process. Our demand is laws of freedom for all. If freedom laws are enacted and the way for democratic politics is opened, everyone from the top of this Movement to the newest fighter will leave. It carries out democratic construction work all over Turkey and Kurdistan. Our understanding of politics is not to be stuck in Ankara, but to build society on a moral and political basis."

REGULATION IN WARTIME LAWS

Transitional law is not a halalization. What is desired is to give an account of what has happened and to confront the suffering, which is the biggest obstacle to the commonality of the peoples. An important pillar of transitional justice is the amendment and abolition of the wartime laws of the state and their reorganization according to the peace process. This is one of the most important steps that the state will take towards peace, it is a guarantee that it will not return to the same period. Otherwise, it does not want to give up on other things as an excuse and sees the peace process as preparation for war.

THEY CAN USE IT TO BE ACQUITTED

If there is no organized struggle on the right political ground, states can use this process to whitewash their own crimes. They could not use it because the popular organization was strong in Argentina. All Nazi officers and commanders tried at Nuremberg pleaded not guilty to any of the charges, stating that they were following orders. A judge reacted by saying, "I didn't see any guilty Nazis here."

The AKP government once opened JİTEM cases in a way that could be handled within the scope of transitional law justice, but used the courts as a tool to acquit the state and ensured that all cases were concluded in favor of the state. No state official who was tried for disappearances in custody, village burnings, acid wells, extrajudicial executions was punished.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH COMMISSIONS

This is where the Truth Commissions are an important guarantor for transitional justice. These commissions were established in countries where human rights violations were intense; It was decisive in following the investigations into the state's past crimes and the cases related to them. The Truth Commissions were first established in 1983 under the name of the National Commission on the Disappeared (CONADEP) as a result of the struggle of the relatives of those who disappeared in custody in Argentina, where a large-scale dirty war was taking place. Since then, more than 40 Truth Commissions have been established in different parts of the world with different names.

* The Truth Commissions established in Argentina have made great and significant efforts to collect the violations of rights, to announce them to the public and to file lawsuits. It revealed that 8,960 people disappeared and there were 365 illegal detention centers. Some of the lawsuits they filed are ongoing.

* 20 years after the report of the Reconciliation Commission in Peru, former President Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for disappearances, torture and executions in the 90s.

* The Guatamala Historical Lighting Commission established in Guatemala determined that 200 thousand people lost their lives in the conflicts between 1960 and 1996 and that the state was guilty in 93 percent of them.

* In South Africa, some criminals were openly made public, thus preventing them from hiding. The commission responded positively to only 849 of the 7,112 people who applied for pardon after the pardon was granted.

TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND INTEGRATION

Leader Apo cites democratic integration as one of the most important pillars of the new era. Democratic integration does not only mean the participation of members of the Kurdish Freedom Movement in 'social life' as the government discourses. The democratic integration process is also the process of abandoning the genocidal policies implemented by the state and moving away from racist approaches. The first step necessary for democratic integration is to plan and carry out transitional justice on the right ground.

Regarding democratic integration and transitional justice, Leader Apo said, "Advancing the process we are in requires taking history and sociology more seriously. It is important to determine that the Turkish-Kurdish relationship has come to this day as two thousand-year-old pillars. Unity needs to be strengthened by seeing, understanding and repairing these pillars. We should act not by drawing lines, but by creating a horizon that will include our current problems. We are making a serious effort for a historical issue under limited conditions. We are trying to develop a positive stage, not a destructive and negative one."

THREE BASIC PRINCIPLES EMPHASIZED BY LEADER APO

In his message to the International Conference on Peace and Democratic Society, Leader Apo emphasized that one of the arguments he put forward as the main struggle strategy is democratic integration and its concept of law, and said: "The law of democratic integration, in which the law is restructured in favor of society with individual and universal norms and collective peoples, should also be based on three basic principles;

* Free Citizen Law

* Peace and Democratic Society Act

* Freedom Laws

The law of democratic integration will both transform the state into a norm state and mean that the society will achieve its freedom by institutionalizing the existence it has gained."

Therefore, as long as democratic integration is not implemented in accordance with the principles determined by Leader Apo, transitional justice will not be implemented.