The Freedom of Departure From the Country of the Inconvenient Ones’ in Terms of the General Security and the Article 23 of the Passport Code

After the recent amendments took place about the article 23 of the Constitution (1982), the right of departure from the country of a citizen would be restricted by a judicial degree, which could be given solely on grounds of a crime investigation or prosecution. According to the Article 22 of the Passport Code, “Passport or a travel document cannot be given to the people whose freedom of departure from the country have prohibited by a court or whose departure from the country have been identified as inconvenient by the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding to the general security.” This mentioned code gives the right to the executive organ to dispose restrictions on the freedom of travel of Turkish citizens. The Article 23 of the Passport Code states that, “In case of a danger of war or in other emergency situations pertaining to security or public health, the Council of Ministers may partially or completely bans the travel of the Turkish citizens to foreign countries and may also decide, for political and economic reasons, to issue passports which will be valid for certain countries.” In this article, we examine the compatibility of the above mentioned provisions of the Passport Code to the Constitution and specifically the freedom of travel of the inconvenient ones’ on the grounds of general security.