Proceedings of the 16th International Academic Conference, Amsterdam

WIRETAPPING AS A SECRET INVESTIGATION MEASURE IN TURKISH CRIMINAL JURISDICTION LAW

MEHMET ONURSAL CIN

Abstract:

Organized Crimes are increasing all over the world. Besides, communication technologies evolving rapidly. And criminal organizations benefit from this case. Local Investigation authorities who have to struggle with organized crime are also required to take advantage of this technological development. During a criminal investigation, wiretapping is a very important method of obtaining evidence. This measure is the most effective one in the other secret investigation measures and it also violates freedom of communication and private life, which are under guarantee of Turkish Constitution. Because of that the legal formulation and implementation should be performed very carefully. The aim of this article is to discuss the legal and social dimensions of wiretapping system in Turkish Criminal Procedure. Although it is similar to the German System, due to political, social and demographic conditions, some major changes have been made. According to Turkish Constitution Art.22 which entitled Freedom of communication; everyone has freedom of communication. This freedom and its confidentiality can only be limited because of national security, public order, prevention of crime, protection of the general public health and ethic rules or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. In order to limit these freedoms, an authorized judge should make a decision that depends counted reasons by Art.22. Also The European Convention on human rights (ECHR) Art.8 regulates that all people have right to be respected their private and family life, for his home and correspondence. As a Law State no one have permit to violate the Constitution and ECHR. It is a serious crime to wiretap or to use a machine to capture the communications of others without court approval, unless one of the parties has given his prior consent. In recent years, due to the implementation of the unlawful wiretapping in Turkey, we can say that Turkish Criminal Jurisdiction System experienced many sensational cases and scandals. Many official institutions have authority to wiretap in our law system. (Police, Army, Intelligence Agency) But the real problem is illegal eavesdropping. The government must struggle to these malicious people who eavesdrop to citizens by wiretapping devices that can be easily purchased over the Internet. Because this type of listening, has been put majority of our people into “someone’s eavesdropping me" paranoia. In this context, the study aims to investigate the way of using wiretapping and its shortcomings in the process of criminal investigation of Turkish criminal system.

Keywords: wiretapping, eavesdropping, criminal jurisdiction law

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.016.024

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