The Raoul Wallenberg Inter-Universities Fictional Constitutional Complaint Competition 2016 has been completed with success.
The Raoul Wallenberg Inter-Universities Fictional Constitutional Complaint Competition is the only competition on human rights issues among law students in Turkey. This makes it a unique opportunity for students to increase their knowledge and ability in human rights law.
This year, the competition was nationwide. Students from all over Turkey formed teams of 3 to 5 persons. In 30 days, 30 groups from 17 different universities each sent a complaint file. Female members made up 62% of the groups, and 8 of the 17 participant universities were public universities. The Evaluation Committee sent 17 complaint files to the Deliberation Group which was comprised of 3 judges, each of whom were experts on human rights law. They examined the complaints and sent the 4 files with the highest points to the Final Judges Committee.
After five hours of competition between four short listed teams, Marmara University (Hüdanur Aygut, Kardelen Ateşçi, Osman Orhan, and Yasin Ataç) were declared as the winners. Koç University (Hümeyra Çolak, Zeynep Kiriş, Elif Ekiz, and Burcu Çınar) came second, ahead of Bilgi University and Okan University.
The jury members, Ms. Ayşegül Bedia Tansen (President of the Human Rights Center of Istanbul Bar Association), Kerem Altıparmak (Assistant Professor at Ankara University), and Timuçin Köprülü (Assistant Professor at Uludağ University), said the competition brings hope that there will be an improvement in regard to the country’s human rights record.
Furthermore, advancement in this area cannot occur without skilled human rights lawyers. Benan Molu and Serkan Köybaşı (the organizers of the competition) think that the Inter-Universities Fictional Constitutional Complaint Competition has a key role to play, and in years to follow – as the competition becomes more prominent and prestigious – it will help to decrease human rights violations in Turkey.
The RWI Turkey Program has been organizing the competition since 2015.