An Assesment of the Effectiveness of the Constitutional Court’s Pilot Judgment Procedure through the Process Leading to the Annulment of Article 9 of Law Number 5651

By the end of 2023, a total of 953.415 internet content had been blocked or deleted in Turkey. This increased individual applications to the Turkish Constitutional Court. To prevent rights infringements, the Turkish Constitutional Court aimed to define the legal nature and imposition criteria for access blocking measures. However, the authorities consistently ignored these criteria, leading to a continuous increase in applications. Consequently, the Turkish Constitutional Court introduced the pilot judgment method. Despite the Turkish Constitutional Court’s decision, the method did not resolve disputes or protect the rights due to a lack of cooperation between the legislative and executive branches. Thus, such a lack of cooperation, conversely, led to an increase in rights infringements and further complicated issues. This study questioned whether the pilot judgment method was always an effective tool in safeguarding against human rights violations or if it potentially had the opposite effect or no effect at all.