The Scope and Limits of Freedom of Thought in TRNC Legal System

Freedom of thought is an ‘umbrella’ of freedoms which includes many freedoms. The first category of divisions includes the ones which are about creation of thoughts. These include people’s rights to think freely, not to be feared regarding these thoughts and not to be under pressure to express their thoughts. The other dimension of freedom of thought is freedom of expression, which provides the expression of thoughts to other people freely. The last of all, the freedom of thought includes freedom of information and news within the country. With all its different dimensions, freedom of thought plays a significant role in establishing a pluralist understanding of democracy. In this study, the scope and limits of freedom of thought will be covered regarding the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)’s legal system. In this respect, issues related with the targeted balance between authority and freedoms will be discussed. Here, especially restrictions that legitimize authority will be discussed. Thus, it will be demonstrated that the system which is established with the idea of legitimizing the formal truth as the only truth concept, will be departed from the idea of pluralis