Parliament has started discussing the fifth judicial reform package, including an amendment to current legislation that criminalizes intervening in a judicial process.
The reform package has already been taken up by the parliamentary Justice Commission. During the talks in the commission, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputies submitted several proposals, adding new articles to the package. One of these new articles is Article 52 of the package, which makes changes to Article 277 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), in which intervening in the judiciary is defined as a crime. With the latest changes, intervening in the work of security forces or prosecutors conducting an investigation will no longer be a crime.
Republican People's Party (CHP) Konya deputy Atilla Kart, in comments to Today's Zaman on the issue, said the change is a violation of the concept of criminal law. “They are using the sensitivities of the nation as a mask for the laws they adopt. They are exploiting the anticipation of amnesty in the judicial package, and then adding in articles that serve their interests. By integrating the article, which decriminalizes intervention in the judiciary, they are working to promote their own agenda. The judicial process should be unified, and according to universal principles, at no stage can there be an intervention or an attempt to intervene. Article 277 of the TCK makes it a crime to intervene in a judicial proces to ensure impartial and unbiased judicial processes,” he said.
Kart also said the amendment is a direct admission of the AK Party administration that the government routinely intervenes in the judiciary. Kart, who is a member of the parliamentary Constitutional Reconciliation Commission, said most of the time the government intervenes at the investigation phase of an ongoing judicial process. Kart said with the change, there will be no judicial proceedings.
He noted that the government actively blocked an investigation into corruption allegations that became public when the prosecutor detained several businessmen close to the government and the sons of three ministers on Dec. 17 and later tried to make further detentions on Dec. 25. “By phoning the prosecutors and stopping the security forces [from making detentions], they intervened in the judicial process. What they are doing is admitting to their own crime.” He said if prosecutor and police operations cannot be carried out freely, there will no longer be a possibility to launch a legal process.
Head of the Law and Life Association Mehmet Kasap said the amendment is an “admission of authoritarianism” on the part of the government. “This is openly makes it legal for the executive branch to intervene in the judiciary. This is tantamount to destroying the principle of the separation of powers, gathering all powers in a single place and an admission of authorization.”
Kasap, who is a lawyer, said: “An indictment is shaped by evidence collected during the investigation stage of the judicial process. It is an unacceptable catastrophe to decriminalize intervening in the judiciary in the stage of inquiry.” Kasap said Turkey can no longer claim to have judicial independence or impartiality once the amendment is approved.
Mete Göktürk, a retired prosecutor, also stated that decriminalizing intervention in a judicial inquiry will effectively end the secrecy of an investigation as well as the impartiality of the judiciary. “It will cause the public to have no confidence in the judiciary at all,” Göktürk said.
Göktürk said the government was trying to protect itself from the consequences of having intervened in the Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 investigations. He said the regulation would most certainly be overturned by the Constitutional Court. “Article 138 of the Constitution openly prevents intervention in the judiciary. This article, as it is in the current proposal, makes it legal for the executive to intervene in the judiciary and thus destroys the principle of separation of powers.”
Source/Fuente: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-349506-intervening-in-judiciary-will-no-...
