Between Resistance and Restraint: the Turkish Constitutional Court’s Role in Questioning the “Safe Third Country” Assumption

Abstract This article examines the Turkish Constitutional Court’s ( TCC ) jurisprudence on migration control in the context of the European Union’s externalisation of asylum responsibilities following the 2016 EU–Turkey Statement. While the Statement operationalised the designation of Turkey as a “safe third country” and “first country of asylum,” this assumption has remained legally and empirically contested. Drawing on an original dataset of individual applications lodged before the TCC between 2016 and 2025, the article analyses how constitutional adjudication has responded to deportation, administrative detention, and so-called “voluntary return” practices shaped by externalisation. It argues that the TCC occupies an ambivalent position between resistance and restraint: on the one hand, it has identified violations of the prohibition of ill-treatment, the right to liberty, and the right to an effective remedy; on the other, it has relied heavily on procedural dismissals and individualised reasoning that leave structural deficiencies unaddressed. The article situates this jurisprudence within its political context and evaluates its implications for the EU’s reliance on Turkey as a provider of “effective protection” under European asylum law.