How Constitutional is the Privileged Immunity of Experts?

The study titled “Unconstitutionality of Privileged Protection Granted to the Clan of Experts” drafted by Merve Kurdak, Zeynep Koray and myself, criticises the place of the “Experts” in the Turkish judicial system.

Though it is clearly contrary to the Law and the Constitution, emulating the structure in Germany, the “experts” are granted a privileged non-liability and immunity going beyond even the assurance granted to judges. Thus, these “Experts” are immune even from breaches of or negligence of duty. We used this report to publicly protest against the system.

My colleagues and I requested in this book that the “Experts” should not have any control/influence over the direction a trial takes, rather they should only be expected to respond to questions asked of them and should be fully accountable to the court and to each party for their answers.