The head of an Ankara bar association has said the Justice Ministry gave his organization preferential treatment that helped 70 members become judges and prosecutors, sparking demands for an investigation into how Turkey recruits its judicial officials, the Cumhuriyet newspaper reported.
Gökhan Ağdemir, president of the Ankara No. 2 Bar Association, made the remarks during an October 5 appearance on Bengü Türk TV ahead of the association’s October 18 election.
He withdrew his bid for another term in a statement on X on Monday, saying his comments had been taken out of context.
The controversy touches on longstanding concerns about judicial independence in Turkey, where more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors were dismissed following a failed coup in July 2016. The purge, targeting alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, helped reshape the judiciary under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“We provide references for our colleagues who want to become judges and prosecutors. During our roughly two-year term, we made 70 lawyers who were members of our bar judges and prosecutors,” Ağdemir said.
“We provided references and spoke with the ministries. Thankfully, the ministry gave us a privilege in that respect.”
His remarks prompted the Judges’ Union to demand an explanation of the legal basis for the claimed preferential treatment and its role in selecting candidates.
The union asked how the 70 lawyers had been chosen, whether applicants from other bar associations had been treated equally and whether their recruitment complied with the required procedures.
It also urged a review of oral examination panels dominated by Justice Ministry officials and called for interviews to be recorded.
The İstanbul Bar Association announced plans to file a criminal complaint on Tuesday, saying the remarks raised serious questions about merit in judicial recruitment and public confidence in the courts.
It said discrimination based on bar membership, political proximity or institutional references was incompatible with equal access to public service and the rule of law.
In his Monday statement announcing his withdrawal, Ağdemir said political opponents had distorted his remarks and turned his association’s work into a political controversy. He defended his commitment to merit, equality and judicial independence and said he was withdrawing to protect the institution’s reputation.
The statement did not explain what the ministry’s claimed preferential treatment involved or how the 70 lawyers had been selected.
The dispute also revives criticism of the government’s 2020 legislation allowing rival bar associations to operate in the same province. The Ankara No. 2 Bar Association emerged under that framework, with its founders submitting their establishment declaration in August 2020.
Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists warned at the time that the changes would divide the legal profession along political lines and weaken major bar associations’ role in scrutinizing rights abuses.
The restructuring of the judiciary began before the failed coup. Court records documented senior Justice Ministry officials’ efforts in 2013 to identify suspected Gülen affiliates and organize a bloc that later won control of the judicial governing board.
By 2018, 4,399 judges and prosecutors had been dismissed, of whom 454 were subsequently reinstated, according to European Commission figures. Ankara accuses the Gülen movement of orchestrating the coup attempt; the movement denies involvement.
The European Commission’s 2025 Turkey report warned of continuing political pressure on judges and prosecutors and the failure to implement binding European Court of Human Rights judgments. The Turkish Foreign Ministry rejected the findings as biased and politically motivated.
Turkey’s standing in international rankings reflects those concerns. It ranked 118th out of 143 countries and jurisdictions in the World Justice Project’s 2025 Rule of Law Index, with its overall score falling 1.9 percent from the previous year.
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