Practicing Law in Administrative Detention for Syrian Refugees in Turkey

This paper aims at understanding inclusive capacity of legal system in Turkey by evaluating dynamics of professional advocacy in administrative detention for Syrian refugees in irregular positions. Our empirical study revealed Turkish judicial system, despite its push toward centralization and professionalization in the name of identification by the European impact, has a serious lack of translation and interpretation facilities, procedural incompleteness as the issue of bureaucracy in overloaded functions, and incompetency in migration-specific jurisdiction. We claim these shortcomings associating with manifestation of discrimination toward Syrians disallow to overcome the exclusionary mechanisms toward irregular migrants, except for some attorneys’ professional efforts.