Straying jurists cause the UK to dishonour its international undertakings

The United Kingdom (UK) prides itself on a legal system rooted in fairness, transparency, and the rule of law. Yet beneath this polished veneer lies a troubling loophole—one that allows straying jurists to sidestep ethical duties with impunity, find creative ways to ignore international treaties and cause the UK to dishonour its undertakings under international law to the extent that the UK encroaches the sovereign rights of the Republic of Türkiye.

The UK violating the 1931 and the Hague treaties

Under the bilateral agreement concluded in 1931 between the United Kingdom and Türkiye , as well as the multilateral Hague Conventions on Judicial Assistance to which both nations are signatories, the service of legal documents by British judicial authorities upon citizens of the Republic of Türkiye within Turkish territory is explicitly mandated to occur either in the Turkish language or accompanied by certified Turkish translations, and must be channelled through the competent Turkish judicial authorities. This framework, rooted in mutual respect for sovereignty and legal propriety, establishes a clear protocol for cross-border judicial cooperation.

Yet, a troubling pattern has emerged: British court officials are systematically flouting the terms of this judicial assistance agreement, not only contravene the agreement but also violate the peremptory norms of Turkish law.

British judges have been allowing UK lawyers to serve documents on Turkish citizens through alternative channels, bypassing the agreed-upon pathways and authorities stipulated in the judicial assistance treaties. Lawyers, in turn, execute these so-called notifications by methods that flout both the treaties and Türkiye’s compulsory service rules and regulations. They hand-deliver legal documents directly within Türkiye, dispatch them via the Turkish postal service (PTT), private couriers, or even email—approaches that defy both the judicial assistance framework and the mandatory procedural rules of Turkish jurisprudence. In doing so, they encroach upon the sovereign rights of the Republic of Türkiye over its own territory.

Adjudicating in absentia

Astonishingly, British judges then proceed to adjudicate cases in absentia, issuing rulings on the premise that valid service has occurred, despite the glaring reality that no lawful notification has been affected, and the Turkish citizen has not appeared in court.

This cavalier disregard for established legal norms raises profound questions about the integrity of cross-border judicial relations. It is not merely a procedural lapse; it constitutes a direct challenge to Türkiye’s sovereignty and the rule of law.

Case crystallising the breach

A recent case concerning a mandatory provision of Turkish law involving a Turkish lawyer resident in İstanbul, Türkiye and a large UK law firm exposes this flaw in stark relief, raising questions about the integrity of solicitors, the oversight of the UK courts, judicial administrative institutions and the UK government’s commitment to two long-standing international judicial treaties it has signed.

The scandal unfolds

The case in question revolves around solicitors of a prominent British law firm abruptly terminating the instructions of a Turkish lawyer representing their client in a major dispute in Türkiye. The firm in question did not consider that under Turkish law, such termination entitles the lawyer to the full amount of professional fees as if they had defended the dispute until its conclusion. This meant the British Law firm put their UK-based client under an obligation to pay substantial legal fees.

This is a straightforward matter under the exclusive jurisdiction of Turkish courts and governed by the mandatory provisions of Turkish Law. Rather than settling the matter honourably, the UK firm opted for a cunning manoeuvre: they sought an anti-suit injunction from a UK court to block the Turkish lawyer from pursuing his rightful claim in Türkiye. Here, the UK’s legal integrity begins to unravel.

Convenient oversight or what?

First, the UK solicitors failed to disclose to the court that the defendant was a Turkish national, not a British subject.

Second, the UK firm withheld the fact that two treaties—the 1935 Bilateral Judicial Assistance Treaty between the UK and Turkey, and the 1965 Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial Documents—mandate specific protocols for serving legal documents to foreign nationals. The bilateral and the Hague judicial assistance treaties require service to be made through diplomatic channels with Turkish translations. However, the UK judge either misled by solicitors or unaware of these treaties or straying from these treaty provisions, permitted the UK firm to serve the injunction by email— without translations, outside of diplomatic channels— flagrantly flouting both treaties.

Systemic Failures

The failures sadly extend beyond the solicitors involved. The English judge failed to scrutinise the solicitors’ claims, neglecting to ask the basic question: “Is the defendant a UK national or a Turkish one?” The SRA, the Lord Chancellor and other UK authorities responded with deafening silence when the matter was escalated to them. Not even the UK Ministry of Justice or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, tasked with upholding these treaties, intervened.

This laissez-faire attitude reveals a chilling truth: in the UK, a solicitor can potentially mislead a court, and a stray judge failing to comply with the treaties that the UK signed can hand down a ruling based on deception and the omission of crucial evidence. Moreover, even if the victim has the resources and willingness to fight back there is no substantive appeal route. Does this not cast UK jurists as international conspirators, profiting from procedural sleights-of-hand?

Unchecked integrity and ethics

This wasn’t merely a procedural slip; it was a flagrant violation of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) Principles, which demand that all solicitors must “act with integrity” and uphold “public trust and confidence in the profession”. The SRA’s Code of Conduct explicitly requires solicitors to make “full and frank” disclosures to the court, ensuring statements are “truthful and nothing but the truth”.

By omitting the Turkish lawyer’s nationality and misrepresenting the propriety of service, the solicitors breached these fundamental duties. Their firm, under the SRA Code of Conduct for Firms, shares responsibility—managers must ensure compliance with ethical standards, yet no one intervened. Worse still, the judge contributed to such serious violation by failing to ask the right questions, simply rubber stamping a request to serve on the Turkish national by alternative means which as we have seen clearly violates the judicial assistance treaties in force between Türkiye and the UK.

How to erode trust and weaken a system

Therefore, the solicitors and British judge facilitated the UK dishonouring its treaty commitments, rendering the process a sham.

The UK legal system’s structural weakness is laid bare by this case. By placing too much trust on solicitors, without appropriate checks permitting them to carve out essential parts of the truth, we can see some of the inherent structural weakness of the British system.

The Johnny Depp saga underscores how lax disclosure and unchecked breaches of professional integrity can skew justice—a lesson the UK court in the Turkish lawyer’s case failed to heed.

The SRA’s stance, encourages lawyers to mislead judges and when the UK government does not then address the judge’s deviation from international treaties it creates a perfect environment to erode the principle of integrity from the UK legal system.

According to its own guidance on integrity, rooted in cases like Wingate v SRA (2018) and Beckwith v SRA (2020), the SRA is supposed to hold solicitors to a higher ethical standard than the average citizen. Firms, too, bear the onus of ensuring their lawyers don’t mislead courts. Yet when a judge neglects to verify a solicitor’s claims, the system collapses.

This loophole—where solicitors can potentially mislead, courts can overlook the full facts of a case, and regulators can shrug—undermines the UK’s claim to having a ‘gold standard’ legal system. In reality, UK court’s risk punishing the powerless while shielding the deceitful, especially when overseas defendants can’t afford to challenge incorrect rulings or when disputes aren’t worth the fight.

The UK must address its own deficiency

No matter how fine the UK’s legal system may be, failures of judicial oversight will eventually erode it so it no longer resembles a beacon of justice and sadly becomes a stage for those who want to flout established international law.

It is not the duty of a national of a foreign country to teach the UK’s judges and jurists to comply with the international treaties that the UK has signed. Ultimately it is the UK government who must ensure that it honours its undertakings in international treaties.

If the UK is to honour its international undertakings, it must close this gap in a meaningful way. The SRA must enforce its rules with rigour, courts must demand and ensure the utmost integrity from lawyers and the UK government must ensure treaty obligations are more than mere ink on paper and rigorously address any deviations from its undertakings.

Otherwise, the UK risks compromising its reputation as a bastion of justice, where integrity is paramount and the rule of law reigns supreme.