PARLIAMENTARY IMMUNITY

Court Requested to Bring in DTP MPs by Force

The court decided to bring in DTP members Emine Ayna and Selahattin Demirtaş by force and to issue a new notification for Ahmet Türk. Prof. Dr. Kaboğlu suggested to solve the problem of the MPs immunity by the removal of article 14 concerned with an exception for "terror crimes".

Erol Önderoğlu

Court Requested to Bring in DTP MPs by Force

Despite the parliamentary immunity the Ankara 11^th High Criminal Court decided to bring convicted co-chair Emine Ayna of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and Diyarbakır MP Selahattin Demirtaş to court by force. A new notification will be issued to DTP president Ahmet Türk. The Kurdish MPs have been prosecuted because of the contents of speeches they have made.

The court adjourned the case on 26 May this year. It was postponed till today (29 September) because the MPs' statements were to be taken with a court notification. Ayna explained on NTV that she is not going to testify in the continuation of the court proceedings on 29 December either.

The Presidency of the Turkey Grand National Assembly (TBMM) had been notified about the court notification before and was informed that the directive did not reach the DTP MPs because of their busy schedules.

Kaboğlu: Removal of article 14 for a solution of the problem

Commenting on NTV, member of the Marmara University Law Faculty Prof. Dr. İbrahim Kaboğlu said that after a pending of the case for more than 3 months the Parliament has to deal with it as soon as it re-opens on 1 October.

Kaboğlu said that this situation can be solved by removing the exception related to article 14 concerning "terror crimes" as mentioned in article 83 of the constitution about "constitutional immunity".

Prof. Dr. Kaboğlu explained that this can end the bypassing of law at the level of the parliament's presidency.

The Diyarbakır 5thHigh Criminal Court asked the Ankara court for taking the statement of Diyarbakır MP Selahattin Demirtaş, for Türk it is the Istanbul 9th High Criminal Court and for Ayna it is the Adana 8th High Criminal Court. (EÖ/VK)

Origin

BIA News Center

Erol Önderoğlu

[email protected]

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A graduate of the French Language and Literature Department at İstanbul University. He has served as the Turkey representative for the international organization Reporters Without...

A graduate of the French Language and Literature Department at İstanbul University. He has served as the Turkey representative for the international organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), where he began as a reporter in 1996. Since 1999, he has worked at bianet, a project of the IPS Communication Foundation, as the coordinator of the Legal Support Desk, editor for freedom of expression, and editor-in-chief. He has authored more than 4,800 signed news articles and opinion pieces. He has also written for Bizim Gazete and the journal Güncel Hukuk. He currently prepares the Media Monitoring Reports at bianet.