Trust in public institutions is hard to build and easy to lose. In Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, Türkiye scored 31 out of 100 and ranked 124th of 182 countries. Rights groups have sharply criticised the trial of Istanbul’s jailed mayor and prosecutions of journalists under a “disinformation” law, while officials insist the courts are independent. What would it take for people on all sides to trust the process?
Why does trust in institutions matter?
Trust is the foundation of a free and fair society, woven into the fabric of democracy. It is what lets people believe that courts will rule fairly, that journalists can ask uncomfortable questions, and that opposition parties can compete without fear. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), a widely used measure of how fair people believe public institutions can be trusted. Their report finds that low or falling scores are usually paired with politicised courts, less room for civil society, and weaker checks on power. It also warns that anti-corruption drives led from the top can be fragile and selective when courts are not independent, and the press is not free. Enforcement like that is hard to trust, whoever is behind it. Türkiye’s score is down from 34 a year earlier and from 50 in 2013. The index measures how experts and business people “perceive” corruption, and does not measure proven cases, but a falling score still shows that confidence is slipping.
What is happening to press freedom?
Corruption is hard to expose without reporters who can investigate it, and these watchdog roles weaken when exposure becomes riskier. In October 2022, Türkiye adopted Article 217/A of its Penal Code, which sets one to three years in prison for publicly spreading false or misleading information likely to cause public fear or disturb public order. The government said the law would fight disinformation, and the then justice minister said it would only be used against public order disturbances and attacks on social peace. Critics are not persuaded. In April 2026, more than two dozen press freedom groups said that according to news reports, at least 83 journalists had been charged 114 times under the law. They argued that its wording is too vague to meet international standards. On 14 April 2026, an Istanbul court sentenced journalists Murat Ağırel and Barış Pehlivan to one year and three months each in accordance with the law, over commentary on a television programme about trade between Türkiye and Israel. The verdicts can be appealed, and the two journalists had not been jailed when the press freedom groups issued their statement. The number of journalists in prison also depends on who is counting. Expression Interrupted counted at least 23 on 26 June 2026.
What is happening to political opponents?
Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, was detained on 19 March 2025 and remanded in custody on 23 March, the day his party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), was due to confirm him as its presidential candidate. His trial on charges including leading a criminal organisation, bribery and bid-rigging opened in March 2026 and was still under way in September. Human Rights Watch counts 407 defendants and calls the case politically motivated, citing its reliance on secret witnesses and on defendants who testify in return for reduced sentences. İmamoğlu denies the charges, and officials reject the criticism. The then justice minister said the investigation was a legal matter handled by independent courts.
In May 2026, an Ankara appeals court annulled the CHP’s 2023 leadership congress, citing alleged vote-buying and reinstated the former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The ousted leader, Özgür Özel, rejected the ruling, while Kılıçdaroğlu’s allies argued it restored the party’s lawful leadership. In July, Özel announced a new party. In early October, courts jailed four mayors and an acting mayor pending trial in corruption investigations into municipalities won by the CHP in 2024, with prosecutors alleging irregular tenders and bribery. The government denies political interference and says prosecutors and courts act independently.
Is corruption being pursued evenly?
A significant question in this debate is whether corruption allegations are pursued evenly, or if they surface at moments that suit a particular interest. To examine this, three variables should be considered.
Consistency
Are comparable allegations pursued regardless of which party is involved? Ümit Özdağ, leader of the nationalist Victory Party (an opposition party separate from the CHP) said in June 2025 that the public could not be persuaded that only CHP municipalities were involved in corruption while municipalities run by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) were entirely clean. A recent case points the other way: Turkish Minute reported that a former family minister and former AKP deputy chair, Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya, and her husband were summoned as suspects in a money-laundering investigation linked to an investment scandal. No verdict has been reported, so the allegations remain untested. A comparison of how often officials from every party are investigated and convicted would help, but that is yet to be found.
Timing
Do the dates of charges follow the evidence, or the election calendar? An investigation into İmamoğlu’s university diploma opened the day after he applied to be the CHP’s presidential candidate. His diploma, which the constitution requires of presidential candidates, was cancelled the day before his arrest in a separate corruption case. Critics see a pattern. Officials say the investigation is legal, not political, and that the responsible course is to wait for the proceedings to conclude. President Erdoğan has claimed that tips about corruption came from inside the CHP itself. Dates can line up without proving intent, and the question applies to every case.
Process
Can an independent observer see why this case was chosen, and why now? In December 2013, corruption investigations reached the then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s circle, and four ministers resigned after prosecutors linked them to bribery allegations. Erdoğan branded the investigations a ‘judicial coup’ by supporters of the Gülen movement, a religious network that had been a government ally and that Ankara later blamed for the 2016 coup attempt, which the movement denies. Prosecutors and police were reassigned, and the cases against dozens of suspects were dropped. Critics say a serious case disappeared; the government says it was an attack on an elected government.
Perhaps corruption is known about but held back until a tactical moment arrives – we cannot know why any case is brought when it is. Researchers have found that elite rivalry can raise the number of investigations into senior officials by up to 20%, and a 2026 article examines ‘criminal selectivity and lawfare’ in Türkiye. These studies describe patterns and argue interpretations, but they do not establish motive in any single case. The constructive response is to ask for the transparency that lets the question be answered.
What would a trusted process look like?
What would it take for people on all sides to trust the process? Each of the three questions has a practical answer, and several echo recommendations already made by Transparency International and press freedom groups. On consistency, independent audits of public spending and procurement, applied to the municipalities of every party, would show whether like cases are treated alike. On timing, published criteria and timing rules for opening and announcing investigations would allow dates to be checked against the evidence. On process, Transparency International recommends that prosecutorial decisions be reasoned and reviewable and that courts publish decisions and data. Hearings should also be open to journalists and independent monitors: the opening session of the İmamoğlu trial limited press places to 25, five of them for international media. Pre-trial detention should come with published reasons that are regularly reviewed. Finally, the coalition of press freedom groups urges that Article 217/A be assessed against Council of Europe standards. The Council’s system for implementing European Court of Human Rights judgments shows that a mechanism exists for resolving disputes: in December 2021 its Committee of Ministers voted to begin infringement proceedings over the Kavala judgment.
Trust works like infrastructure: it is invisible when it holds and costly when it fails. A government confident in its cases has good reason to welcome open hearings and consistent standards. An opposition confident in its innocence has the same reason, and journalists who can report freely help both. What would it take for people with different views to accept the outcome of each case? What will help Türkiye learn to trust itself?
Photo: Makril / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
