Mr. Hakyemez was born on 10 December 1970 in the Çaykara district of Trabzon. He completed his primary, middle, and high school education in Çaykara. He graduated from the Department of Public Administration at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Ankara University, in 1994. He received his master’s and PhD degrees in Public Law at the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Marmara University. In 1995, he started his career as a research assistant in the Department of Public Administration at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Karadeniz Technical University. He earned the title of associate professor in law in 2005 and was promoted to professor in 2010. He has taught courses in constitutional law, administrative law, and human rights at the Faculties of Economics and Administrative Sciences and Law.
Between 2010 and 2012, he served as the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Karadeniz Technical University. From 2012 to 2016, he served as the Vice-Chancellor of Karadeniz Technical University. Between 2015 and 2016, he also served as the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Law.
As an expert in constitutional law, human rights, and state doctrines, he has authored books such as The Concept of Militant Democracy and the 1982 Constitution, The Concept of Sovereignty from Absolute Monarchies to the Present and The Judicial Activism of the Constitutional Court and Its Approach to Human Rights. He has published articles both nationally and internationally. Moreover, he has contributed to the preparation of several reports related to the new constitution and has presented numerous papers at national and international scientific meetings.
Following the 2011 General Elections, he served as an “academic advisor” on the Reconciliation Committee for Constitution of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (GNAT), initiated by the Speaker of the Parliament for the new constitution-making process.
He was a member of the Review Board of Access to Information from 2012 to 2016 and of the Human Rights Institution of Türkiye from 2012 to 2015.
He was appointed as a Justice of the Constitutional Court by the President from amongst three candidates nominated by the Council of Higher Education on 25 August 2016, and he took office on 20 September 2016.
Mr. Yusuf Şevki Hakyemez, who is proficient in English, is married with three children.