ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of feminist femicide watching and litigation in Turkey to illustrate the kind of feminist engagement with law in practice that Carol Smart's Feminism and the Power of Law inspires. Informed by observations made through participation in feminist femicide watching, it also provides insights into the operation of feminist challenges to law's received truths. Since the publication of Feminism and the Power of Law feminists have developed and expanded femicide litigation practices. In Turkey, feminists now go beyond the role of observers to take an active role in the legal process, including that of acting as representatives for the families of femicide victims. The Sefika Etik case demonstrates that law's received truth about violence against women, including intimate partner femicide, can be successfully challenged. Most importantly, judges are generally not applying the clause of unjust provocation in cases that are monitored by feminists today.
