Scholars challenging the assumption that having a right equals having access to that right, approach rights as subject positions of individuals, where performances of rights contribute to configuration of relationships and institutional arrangements. Similarly, in this paper I assert that rights are not legally given but have to be performed in the "judicial space" of the courtrooms. Specifically, I examine the performance of the right to freedom of expression in Turkey through the legal performance within three court spaces that occur within three judicial systems over three decades. Subsequent to a coup d’état in 1980, martial law was declared in Turkey, and the military courts took on the role of the civilian judicial system. Journalists and intellectuals were severely suppressed during the military rule, and were judged at these military courts. Upon gradual reintroduction of democratic procedures between 1984 and 2001, a new system of criminal courts with jurisdiction over crimes against the state, namely the State Security Courts (SSCs), replaced the military courts. SSCs became a parallel legal system, existing side by side with the ‘normal’ legal system. In this period the suppression of journalists and intellectuals continued, as Turkey became the country with the highest number of incarcerated journalists in the world in 1996. With the consolidation of the institutional framework of democracy during European Union accession negotiations between 1999 and 2005, SSCs were abolished, creating the expectation to have more room for peaceful challenges against the official ideology. However, in 2012 Turkey once again became the country with the highest number of imprisoned journalists. In this paper, I analyze one court case from each of the three afore mentioned periods, namely the case of the ‘Petition by Intellectuals’ from 1983, the case of “The book of Freedom to Thought” from 1995, and the case of the book “Imam’s Army” from 2010. Each of these cases has been turned into acts of civil disobedience by the parties involved. Examining these three court cases and the struggles that surround them, I approach the courtrooms as "judicial space"s of negotiation over the limits of freedom of expression. By demonstrating the continuities in the spatial performances of both the state and the rights since 1980, I argue that the normalization of military judicial space into civilian judicial space accounts for the continuity in the restrictive limits of freedom of expression in Turkey.