The decision to detain an international protection applicant during the processing of their claim must be communicated in writing.[1] The notification letter must provide the reasons justifying detention and the length of detention. The applicant must also be notified of the legal consequences of the detention decision and available appeal procedure. However, the LFIP does not impose a requirement to provide this information in writing.
In practice, due to limited familiarity with the rights of lawyers on the part of Removal Centres’ staff, applicants and their legal representatives rarely receive a copy of the removal decision and/or the detention order so as to know when the time limit for appeal starts running,[2] or receive documents without official signatures and seals.
While there is no requirement of automatic periodic review of the detention decision by either the judiciary or PMM itself in relation to detention in the international protection procedure,[3] pre-removal detention must be reviewed by the governorate on a monthly basis.[4]
The decision to detain can be challenged at the competent Magistrates’ Court through a non-suspensive appeal.[5] The law does not set out a time limit for appealing detention. The competent Magistrates’ Court judge must decide on the judicial review application within 5 days. The decision of the Magistrates’ Court is final and cannot be appealed. However, there are no limitations on new appeals by the applicant to challenge their ongoing detention.[6]
According to lawyers’ observations, the poor quality of detention review by Magistrates’ Courts persists as a problem. In the İstanbul, Aydın, Hatay, Gaziantep, Adana, Kayseri and Erzurum Removal Centres,[7] appeals against detention are rejected as a general rule.[8] In İzmir, Van, and Edirne there are increasing concerns about a ‘systemic practice’ in courts to reject administrative detention reviews, as the rejection rates increased in 2023 and as of March 2024.[9] However, Izmir Magistrates’ Court had still some positive decisions to lift the administrative detention decisions in 2023.
In 2024, the general concern among lawyers was that it had become nearly impossible to obtain a positive decision from Magistrates’ Courts. Some of them are impossible like Iğdır. Some lawyers expressed the view that this remedy was no longer effective. Stakeholders reported that certain judges appeared frustrated when they received repeated applications regarding the same detention, despite the legal right to submit multiple applications based on changed circumstances.[10] Although there were a few exceptional positive decisions, these were rare. One stakeholder mentioned a case where the individual was released in the seventh month of detention following the eighth application to the court. In another case, the lawyer secured their client’s release after ten months. There were several more positive examples after ten or eleven months of detention. Nevertheless, stakeholders emphasized that given the legal maximum duration of detention is 6+6 months, obtaining a release order only after 8 to 11 months does not make this legal procedure an effective remedy.[11]
One crucial gap in the LFIP provisions on detention concerns remedies against detention conditions.[12]
Finally, where administrative detention is unlawful, the applicant can lodge a compensation claim (Tam Yargı Davası) before the Administrative Court.[13] Nevertheless, based on administrative court decisions regarding compensation claims, the viability of this option remained highly questionable.[14] It must be noted that, despite eight years having passed since the B.T. decision, there remains significant uncertainty regarding the competent court for filing compensation claims related to unlawful detention. According to stakeholders, this legal ambiguity encourages arbitrary actions by the authorities, as the prevailing mind-set appears to normalize detaining a foreign national without a legal basis more readily than doing so to a citizen.[15]
As of June 2025, the administrative courts of Istanbul 1st, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th Chambers have jurisdiction over cases arising under the Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP). The increasing number of competent chambers has made it challenging to maintain consistency in judicial standards. This variation in practice affects even previously established positive developments—such as adherence to legal time limits or the application of the safe third country concept—by introducing diverging or inconsistent interpretations across chambers.[16]
[1] Article 68(4) LFIP.
[2] Information provided by stakeholders, May 2022 and March 2024.
[3] Article 68(6) LFIP only states that detention may be lifted at any point.
[4] Article 57(4) LFIP.
[5] Article 68(7) LFIP; Article 96(6) RFIP. In November 2015, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors passed a decision to designate the 2nd Chamber of each Magistrates’ Court responsible for appeals against administrative detention decisions within the scope of LFIP.
[6] Article 68(7) LFIP; Article 96(6) RFIP.
[7] Information provided by a lawyer of a Bar Association, February 2018; a lawyer of a Bar Association, February 2018; International Refugee Rights Association, February 2018; a lawyer of a Bar Association, February 2019; a lawyer of a Bar Association, February 2019; information provided by various stakeholders, May-June 2023.
[8] See e.g. 2nd Magistrates’ Court of Gaziantep, Decision 2018/7568, 13 December 2018; Decision 2018/1773, 6 March 2018; Decision 2018/1776, 6 March 2018; 2nd Magistrates’ Court of Van, Decision 2018/6023, 27 November 2018; Decision 2018/6166, 7 January 2018; 2nd Magistrates’ Court of Antakya, Decision 2018/ 4287, 27 November 2018: information provided by various stakeholders, May-June 2023 & information provided by various stakeholders, March – April 2024.
[9] Information provided by stakeholder, March – April 2024.
[10] Information provided by a stakeholder, Februar 2025.
[11] Information provided by multiple stakeholders, May 2025.
[12] For a discussion, see Refugee Rights Türkiye, A pressing need: The lack of legal remedy in challenging material conditions of foreigners under administrative detention in Türkiye, January 2017, available here
[13] Constitutional Court, B.T., Decision 2014/15769, 30 November 2017.
[14] Information provided by various stakeholders, June 2023. For further analysis, see; Gamze Ovacık, Turkish Judicial Practices on International Protection, Removal and Administrative Detention in Connection with the Safe Third Country Concept (On İki Levha Publications 2021) 221-250.
[15] Information provided by multiple stakeholders March and April 2025.
[16] Information provided by a stakeholder May 2025.