Language Barriers and the Right to an Effective Remedy in Removal Centres: Notification, Interpreters and Access to a Lawyer

The time limit for challenging a deportation decision is seven days from notification. That short period rests on a silent assumption about what notification does: that the person has read the document served on them and understood what it is and what they must do. For a foreign national held in a removal centre who does not speak Turkish, that assumption often does not match reality. This article examines the problems the language barrier creates for the validity of notification, the running of time limits and access to a lawyer.

The concrete scale of the problem

The visit report of the Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye (TİHEK) on the Istanbul Çatalca Removal Centre shows that this debate is not theoretical. Report No. 2026/45, based on a visit carried out on 6–7 October 2025 and adopted by the Institution's decision No. 2026/778 of 16 July 2026, contains the following data:

• The centre accommodates 440 foreign nationals of 64 different nationalities.
• The number of interpreters working at the centre is two: one permanent Persian interpreter and one English/Russian interpreter engaged under a project.
• The total number of staff is 98.
• There are four lawyer interview rooms; they are divided by glass partitions and interviews are conducted through a microphone.

The ratio between sixty-four nationalities and two interpreters shows that there is no institutional guarantee that a foreign national who speaks Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, Pashto, Dari, Bengali, Urdu or one of various African languages will understand the document served on them in their own language. Indeed, in the recommendations section of its report TİHEK proposed increasing the number of interpreters.

What must notification achieve?

Article 53(2) of Law No. 6458 reads as follows: "The decision shall be notified, together with its reasons, to the foreign national in respect of whom the deportation decision has been taken, or to his or her legal representative or lawyer. Where the foreign national in respect of whom the deportation decision has been taken is not represented by a lawyer, he or she or the legal representative shall be informed of the outcome of the decision and of the procedures and time limits for challenging it."

It should be noted that the provision contains two distinct elements: notification and information. Notification means delivering the reasoned decision; information is a separate duty laid down for persons not represented by a lawyer, aimed at making the outcome of the decision and the available remedy comprehensible. It is significant that the legislature provided for this second duty specifically for persons without a lawyer: the assumption behind the provision is that a person without a lawyer may not be able to interpret the document correctly on their own. The fact that a document was handed over against signature does not in itself prove that this second element was satisfied.

The same duty is repeated for administrative detention. Under Article 57(5), the detention decision, the extension of the period and the results of the monthly assessments are notified together with their reasons; where the person is not represented by a lawyer, he or she or the legal representative is informed of the outcome of the decision and of the procedures and time limits for challenging it.

This distinction is decisive for when time starts to run. The seven-day time limit for bringing proceedings depends on the notification being legally valid. Where the addressee has signed a document in a language they do not understand without its content being conveyed to them in a language they can understand, it cannot be said that the notification performed its function of informing. In practice this objection is one of the strongest arguments available against a plea that the time limit has expired; but it also brings a problem of proof.

As to proof, the elements to look for in the file are these: whether the notification record contains the interpreter's name, the language interpreted and the interpreter's signature; whether a copy of the document translated into a language the foreign national understands was provided; and who supplied the interpreting service. TİHEK's finding that, for certain languages, help is at times obtained from other foreign nationals present in the centre is a further matter that must be assessed here. Using another foreign national whose own case is being processed in the same centre as an interpreter is problematic in terms of impartiality and confidentiality; it also results in information about the person's deportation proceedings being shared with a third party.

Two separate decisions, two separate routes

The most frequent confusion caused by the language barrier, and the one with the gravest consequences, is that the deportation decision and the administrative detention decision are subject to different legal remedies:

Two details in the table are particularly often confused. First, in deportation proceedings the "fifteen days" run not from the filing of the case but, under Article 53(3) as amended by Law No. 7533, from the completion of the file; in practice, therefore, the process does not end in fifteen days. Second, while bringing proceedings against a deportation decision prevents the foreign national from being deported, applying to the magistrate's court against an administrative detention decision does not suspend the detention.

For a person who does not speak Turkish, grasping that two documents served on the same day must be taken to different courts within different time limits is not realistic without interpreting support. A situation frequently encountered in practice is that the person challenges only one of the two decisions, or makes a single application covering both. This can cause a loss of rights at the very outset of the process that is difficult to repair.

Access to a lawyer: formal access versus effective access

Access to a lawyer in removal centres is not a matter of goodwill but a statutory right. Under Article 59(1)(b) of Law No. 6458, foreign nationals in removal centres "shall be provided with the opportunity to access and meet their relatives, a notary, their legal representative and a lawyer, as well as access to telephone services". Moreover, Article 57(7) provides that persons who apply to the courts against an administrative detention measure and are unable to meet lawyers' fees shall, upon request, be provided with legal services in accordance with Attorneyship Law No. 1136.

That last provision lies at the heart of the language-barrier debate. The right is made conditional on a request; and a request can be made only if the person knows the right exists. For someone who has never learned that a lawyer can be provided free of charge, Article 57(7) remains on paper. It must therefore be accepted that the duty to inform under Articles 53(2) and 57(5) extends to the legal aid available under Article 57(7).

According to the TİHEK report, there are four lawyer interview rooms at the Çatalca Removal Centre and access is stated to be available without limit during working hours on weekdays. That shows that access is institutionally open. But the measure of a legal safeguard is not whether the door is open; it is whether the person can walk through it.

To speak of effective access, the person must know, in turn: (i) that they have the right to instruct a lawyer; (ii) that if they cannot pay, legal services will be provided on request under Article 57(7); (iii) how to make the application; and (iv) that, for the deportation decision, they must do so before the seven-day period expires. Unless all four pieces of information are conveyed in a language the person understands, physical access alone produces no result. Besides, the meeting with the lawyer itself requires interpreting; where a centre has two interpreters, how the interpreting needs of lawyer interviews are to be met is a separate problem.

Article 40 of the Constitution imposes on the State the duty to ensure that everyone whose rights have been violated has the opportunity to apply to the competent authority without delay. The right to an effective remedy under Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights points the same way. In assessing the right to an effective remedy, the test is not whether the remedy exists on paper but whether it is usable in practice by the person concerned. A language barrier does not abolish a remedy, but it can render it unusable; in terms of legal consequence there is no difference between the two.

The Constitutional Court's approach to reasoning and documentation

While the Constitutional Court's judgments on removal centre practice do not address the interpreter problem directly, they contain criteria concerning the administration's duty to document its acts. In Y.K. (Application No. 2016/14347, 2 June 2020) the Court included among the elements leading to a finding of violation the absence of any written order or record concerning the applicant's placement in a single-occupancy room, and the absence of any explanation from the administration as to why he had been placed there.

That approach can also be applied to the notification debate. A notification record that does not contain the interpreter's identity, the language and a signature falls well short of showing that the duty to inform was discharged. The general principle that the consequences of a failure to document an act must be borne by the administration that was required to produce that record applies here too.

Assessment and proposals

For a foreign national held in a removal centre, the language barrier affects not a single right but a chain of interconnected rights: understanding the decision, knowing the time limit, applying to the correct authority and reaching a lawyer. A gap in the first link renders all those that follow inoperative.

At the level of legislation, the following measures would answer the problem directly:

• making it a mandatory element of the notification record for deportation and administrative detention decisions to state the interpreter's name, the language interpreted and the interpreter's signature, together with the language in which the document was conveyed orally;
• preparing a standard information form in widely spoken languages, setting out the outcome of the decision, the authority to apply to, the time limit and the legal aid available under Article 57(7), and attaching it to the notification;
• expressly restricting the use of other foreign nationals present in the centre as interpreters, on grounds of confidentiality and impartiality;
• determining interpreter posts according to the language profile of the population accommodated in the centre — this is the recommendation made in TİHEK's Çatalca report.

Unless these measures are taken, it is difficult to say that the seven-day time limit for bringing proceedings offers a genuine remedy to a foreign national who does not speak Turkish.

Sources

• Law No. 6458 on Foreigners and International Protection (Official Gazette of 11 April 2013, No. 28615), Articles 53(2)–(3) (third paragraph: amended by Article 36 of Law No. 7533 of 21 November 2024), 57(5)–(7) and 59(1)(b).
• Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye, Istanbul Çatalca Removal Centre Visit Report, Report No. 2026/45, Decision No. 2026/778 of 16 July 2026 (visit of 6–7 October 2025).
• Constitutional Court, Second Section, Y.K., Application No. 2016/14347, 2 June 2020 (Press Release BB 53/20, 3 September 2020).
• Presidency of Migration Management, "Deportation", goc.gov.tr.
• Constitution of the Republic of Türkiye, Article 40; European Convention on Human Rights, Article 13.

This article is based on the legislation in force as at 11 September 2026. It is intended as general information and does not constitute legal advice; in a specific case it is advisable to consult a lawyer.