I. Introduction: A New Government and a New Judicial Approach

By late 1920, the political and legal landscape of the Ottoman Empire had shifted dramatically. The Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî courts-martial, convened under Grand Vizier Damat Ferit Paşa in 1919, had produced numerous convictions — many in absentia — but had also become widely discredited. Their heavy reliance on unverified testimony, political motivations, and procedural shortcuts had prompted even Britain’s high commissioners, Somerset Gough-Calthorpe and John de Robeck, to dismiss them as “farces” whose findings were “of no account” (FO 371/4172, 28 June 1919; FO 371/6504, 3 March 1920).

It was in this climate of legal disrepute and political upheaval that a new government, headed by Ahmet Tevfik Paşa, came to power. His administration sought to restore a measure of credibility to Ottoman justice by revising the tribunal system, strengthening procedural guarantees, and insulating the courts from the worst excesses of political manipulation. What followed — the so-called “Second Tribunals” — represented a genuine attempt to administer justice under occupation. Yet those efforts would be thwarted by the very powers that had demanded accountability in the first place.

II. Reforming the Legal Machinery: The Tevfik Paşa Government’s Judicial Vision

Ahmet Tevfik Paşa, who had previously served as grand vizier during the Young Turk era, was a seasoned diplomat with a reputation for caution and legalism. Unlike Damat Ferit, whose government had used the tribunals as instruments of political vengeance against the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), Tevfik sought to rebuild confidence in the Ottoman judiciary and demonstrate that justice could be pursued on an evidentiary — rather than purely political — basis.

1. Appeals and Reviews of Previous Verdicts

One of the new government’s first actions was to review and, where possible, appeal verdicts handed down by the earlier tribunals. On 23 April 1920, the Council of Ministers issued a decree (DUİT 54/1–11) authorizing a reassessment of prior judgments on the grounds of procedural impropriety. A subsequent decision (MV 252/136) formally reopened several cases, citing “irregularities in process” and “insufficient opportunity for defense.” These moves were a clear signal of the government’s intention to rectify what many regarded as show trials rather than genuine judicial proceedings.

2. Structural and Procedural Reforms

Reforms also targeted the structure and procedure of the courts. The War Ministry (Harbiye Nezareti) issued directives (BEO 330114) mandating stricter evidentiary standards, more robust rights of defense, and closer adherence to the Ottoman Criminal Code. Cases that had been prosecuted solely on the basis of hearsay or commission-prepared dossiers were suspended pending further review. Others were transferred from military to civilian courts (Takvim-i Vekayi, No. 3689, 7 February 1921), an important step toward restoring judicial legitimacy.

3. Rhetorical Shift: From Retribution to Legality

This transformation was not merely procedural but rhetorical. Official statements in Takvim-i Vekayi and ministerial correspondence emphasized justice (adalet) and law (kanun) over punishment or revenge. As one cabinet memorandum put it, the government’s objective was “to establish the truth through lawful procedure, not to appease foreign demands through expediency” (MV 252/136). This language marked a significant departure from Damat Ferit’s policy of ostentatious punishment aimed at placating the Allies.

III. The British Response: From Skepticism to Obstruction

Paradoxically, the very powers that had condemned the Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî tribunals for their flaws now acted to prevent their reform. The British occupation authorities, far from encouraging Tevfik’s more legally rigorous approach, responded by removing defendants from Ottoman jurisdiction and undermining the new tribunals’ capacity to function.

1. Deportation to Malta

Beginning in mid-1919 and accelerating in 1920, British forces arrested and deported dozens of Ottoman officials — many of them CUP members and provincial administrators — to the Crown Colony of Malta. The objective, articulated by Foreign Office officials, was to prepare “neutral” prosecutions under British law, based on evidence drawn from Ottoman, Allied, and U.S. archives. However, the deportations had a more immediate consequence: they stripped the Ottoman courts of their defendants, rendering many pending cases moot.

Among those deported were prominent figures such as Said Halim Pasha, Şükrü Bey, and Hasan Tahsin Pasha. British records list over 140 detainees sent to Malta between May 1919 and October 1920 (Şimşir, Malta Sürgünleri, pp. 204–225). Ottoman officials protested these removals as a violation of sovereignty, but their objections were ignored.

2. Evidence Withheld and Judicial Paralysis

The British not only removed suspects but also withheld key evidence from Ottoman investigators. Requests for the return of documents seized from CUP offices and provincial administrations went unanswered. Without access to these materials — many of which had been cited in the original tribunal proceedings — the new courts struggled to substantiate charges or reopen cases on firmer evidentiary grounds.

The cumulative effect was judicial paralysis. By November 1920, the Interior Ministry reported that several major cases had to be suspended due to “absence of the accused” and “unavailability of essential documents” (DH.ŞFR. 103/127). A British Foreign Office memorandum of 14 September 1921 acknowledged that “the Ottoman courts are no longer in a position to pursue the matter effectively” (FO 371/6508).

IV. The Collapse of the Second Tribunal Project

By 1921, the Tevfik government’s hopes for a credible judicial reckoning had largely evaporated. Most of the remaining Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî cases were quietly shelved (BEO 4652/348921, March 1921), and publication of tribunal notices in Takvim-i Vekayi all but ceased (No. 3701, 3 June 1921). The final blow came with the Attorney General’s memorandum of 29 July 1921, which concluded that “no evidence is available which would be sufficient to sustain a charge” in a British court (FO 371/6506). Deprived of both defendants and evidence, the Ottoman judicial system had been rendered impotent.

The irony was profound. The Allies had demanded justice and condemned the first tribunals for their inadequacies. Yet when the Ottoman state sought to build a more legitimate process, the same powers dismantled it — first by removing suspects, then by withholding evidence, and finally by dismissing the possibility of prosecution altogether.

V. Historiographical Assessment: Between Law and Power

Modern scholarship has increasingly recognized the significance of this second judicial phase. Historian Uluç Gürkan characterizes it as “an abortive attempt at legal sovereignty — one that failed not because of Ottoman unwillingness, but because of imperial obstruction” (Malta Yargılamaları ve Delil Sorunu, p. 43). Ferudun Ata similarly notes that the second tribunals “represented a good-faith effort to replace political theatre with lawful adjudication,” but “they were smothered by foreign intervention before they could mature” (İşgal İstanbul’unda Tehcir Yargılamaları, p. 132).

For Justin McCarthy, the lesson is methodological: historians must distinguish between what courts attempted and what they achieved. The second tribunals show that, in a post-war context dominated by imperial power, justice itself becomes a contested terrain — one where law and sovereignty are easily subordinated to strategic interest.

VI. Conclusion: Justice Deferred, Sovereignty Denied

The “Second Tribunals” of 1920–1922 represent one of the most revealing — and neglected — episodes in the legal aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. They were conceived as a corrective to the deeply flawed Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî trials, an attempt to restore credibility to a judicial system tarnished by political manipulation and foreign pressure. Their architects sought to align process with principle: to ensure the accused had access to defense, that evidence was properly vetted, and that justice was administered according to Ottoman law rather than imperial dictate.

Yet these aspirations were thwarted at every turn. The British occupation authorities, dissatisfied with the first tribunals but unwilling to allow an independent second attempt, undermined the new courts through deportations, evidence suppression, and jurisdictional interference. In the end, the second tribunals failed not because they were unjust, but because they were not permitted to function.

Their story offers a sobering lesson about postwar justice: legal processes do not occur in a vacuum. They are shaped — and sometimes strangled — by the political and geopolitical forces that surround them. In this case, the pursuit of accountability was subordinated to imperial power, and justice was deferred indefinitely.