Complaint to Judges Board by Mehmet Altan's lawyers

Lawyers Ergin Cinmen, Figen Çalıkuşu, Ferat Çağıl and Melike Polat, the filers of the application to the BJP, argued in their submission that the judges had violated the Constitution and were committing a crime against their client. Istanbul Bar Association has also indicated in separate correspondence that it sent to the BJP that it agrees with Altan’s lawyers’ conclusions set out in their submission, and has called on the BJP to urgently fulfil its duty.
 
“Judicial chaos is currently being experienced”
 
According to a report by T24, the lawyers, pointing to the wording, “Detention is not lawful and the freedoms of expression and the press and the right to freedom and security of person have been violated” in the Constitutional Court’s ruling of 11 January, said, “A violation ruling passed by the Plenary Session of the Constitutional Court in respect of our client’s application has not been complied with. All recourse has been exhausted. In our view, great judicial chaos is currently being experienced. The law is being thwarted at the hands of the judiciary.”
 
“The Constitutional Court’s esteem has been shattered and a crime is being committed against Altan”
 
With it stated in the submission, “The prevailing situation is not just severely violating our client’s constitutional rights. A serious blow has been struck to the nature of our republic as a law-based state. It has brought the esteem of the judiciary into debate, not just in our country, but among the international community,” it was noted that the Constitutional Court’s esteem had been shattered and argued that a crime was also being committed against Altan.
 
The lawyers, commenting, “Not only has Article 19/3 of the Constitution been violated, but it is self-evident that he is being deprived of his liberty in the manner set out in Article 109/3 of the Turkish Penal Code and that the judges, who, as laid down in Article 257 of the Turkish Penal Code, have ‘wronged our client by acting contrary to the requirements of their position’ have committed the offence of abuse of position. It is impossible to account in legal, rational or conscientious terms for this being done by a body that is duty bound to dispense justice, under a ruling by a serious crime court,” have called for the necessary investigation to be launched premised on “the opinion that duties cannot be conducted correctly and impartially” into the four judges serving at Serious Crime Courts No 26 and 27. The lawyers also included the demands for the judges to be removed from their posts or appointed elsewhere so as to bring the violations to an end and for them to be suspended from their posts for the duration of the investigation so that the investigation can be conducted in a sound manner.
 
Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors suspended judges who released detained journalists
 
The court bench and hearing prosecutor who ordered the release of 21 journalists detained as part of the investigation into the Fethullah Gülen brotherhood following the 15 July coup attempt were temporarily suspended from their posts by the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors. Istanbul Serious Crime Court Presiding Judge İbrahim Lorasdağı and members Barış Cömert and Necla Yeşilyurt Gülbiçim along with hearing prosecutor Göksel Turan were suspended.
 
In the assessment he made following the local courts’ defiance of the Constitutional Court ruling, Human Rights Jurist, Assistant Professor Dr. Kerem Altıparmak, recalling that the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors had previously dismissed judges, commented, “If the BJP does not do the same to the bench of Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 13, this means that it concurs with the decision. And this amounts to telling all courts that they may flout Constitutional Court rulings!”