Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Date: 
20/12/2000

44. By note of 31 October 2000, the Government of Turkey challenged the Working Group’s Opinion No. 36/1999 (O. Murat Ulke). It argues that rather than evaluating the activities for which Mr. Ulke was convicted as “single offences” (i.e. consisting of a single action and its uninterrupted continuing results), one should interpret Mr. Ulke’s consistent refusal to perform his military service as “continuing offences”: every time he was deprived of his liberty the “continuity” of his offence was broken, and every new refusal to perform military service constituted another new offence for which he was once again convicted and deprived of liberty. (…)
48. The objections of the Government were considered by the Working Group at its twenty-ninth session. The Working Group believes that its Opinion is founded on a solid legal basis consistent with accepted jurisprudential norms.

Repeated punishment Recognised