Internet Access as a Fundamental Right or Public Service: Turkish Jurisprudence in Comparative Perspective
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The right to internet access has become a contentious issue within the context of fundamental human rights in a digitalising era. While international instruments and court decisions underscore that the internet is a critical tool for the exercise of fundamental rights, differing views persist on whether this right should possess the status of a stand-alone fundamental right. On the one hand, it is argued that internet access is a precondition for accessing fundamental rights in terms of education, health, freedom of expression, and access to information. On the other hand, based on the premise that the internet is a technology, it is asserted that it has an instrumental character serving the exercise of existing rights, and that defining it as an independent right could undermine the legal systematic of fundamental rights. This article aims to evaluate internet access from a theoretical and comparative legal perspective within the scope of human rights and fundamental rights theories. It analyses international trends in light of documents from the United Nations and the Council of Europe and selected judicial decisions and comprehensively examines the situation in Turkish law within the framework of its legislation and jurisprudence. Furthermore, by taking into account doctrinal critiques concerning “rights inflation” that may arise from increasing rights claims and the sustainability of the fundamental rights framework, a holistic perspective on the status of internet access within legal orders is developed.
Author: Tevfik Burak Ergun
Institution: University of Reading
Language: Turkish
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7221545747