As to the Establishment of ‘State of Emergency Procedures Investigation Commission’

The former deputy of CHP (main opposition party) and also lawyer, Hüseyin Aygün shared the particulars and the main goal of the recent emergency decree law no.685 issued by the ruling party (AKP) in his twitter account.

Here is the share of Hüseyin Aygün:

The emergency decree law no.685 has recently entered into force after being published in the official gazette on 23 January, 2017. The main peculiarity of the recent emergency decree law that renders it different from the preceding ones is that it provides a ‘State of Emergency Procedures Investigation Commission’ to examine the proceedings as regards the closure of the associations, foundations, federations, confederations, health& education institutions, newspapers&magazines, radio&television organizations, news agencies, web sites and the dismissal of in excess of a hundred thousand public officials and taking back the ranks of the retired personnel etc.

The fact that such a commission has been establihed might appear to be a back step of the government or the effort to compensate the unlawfulnesses in Turkey where the number of the dismissed public officials has exceeded 131 thousand as of November. However, everyone who examines the emergency decree law in scrutiny can easily understand that it does not have a such goal.

Firstly, having regard the members of the commission, it can be possibly seen that the commission is deprived of an independent structure. The commission consists of seven members, 3 of whom are appointed by the Prime Minister, 1 is by the Minister of Justice, 1 is by the Minister of Interior and 2 are by HCJP. All of these members will be chosen among the candidates appointed by the government. As all the members of the commission will be appointed by the government, how will it be possible for this commission to settle the disputes of those public officials dismissed under 17 emergency decree laws issued by the government itself up to now? How will the commission, consisting of the members appointed by the government, restore the huge and also mess dismissals, being caused by the government itself? As to be seen, the answer of this question is obvious: “the government has establihed a commission, consisting of its own members and aiming to mislead (deceive) the public.”

Whereas, under the state of emergency circumstances, the commission which will examine the dismissals of 131 thousand public officials dismissed from their professions by the lists not subjected to judicial review by means of the emergency decree laws and the clousure of the private health&education institutions, television& radio organizations, newspapers, should have been particularly independent and impartial from the government. Because, the main responsible for this ruin is the government itself. However, the commission, adopted under the emergency decree law no.685, is nor independent neither impartial. On the contrary, it directly depends on the government.

According to the decree law, the mentioned commission will perform its duty during 2 years (Article 2). How can the files of just 131 thousand public officials dismissed from their professions possibly be concluded in only 2 years? Each member gets almost 20 thousand files as his share. It apperantly seems that this commission will not be able to handle this influx of files in a timely manner.

Further, the commission shall not be able to obtain the information and the documents having a characteristics of a ‘state secret’ (Article 5/1). The commission shall make a decision over the file (Article 9). In other words, the commission will not admit the evidences submitted by the applicants or hear the witnesses indicated by the applicants or take the defences of the dismissed public officials and the owner of a closed institution. In that case, can it be possible for the applicants to have a right to a fair trial? Of course, not. As a matter of fact, the aim is not a fair trial. Even the commission makes the dismissed public officials reinstated in their positions, the executives will not be appointed to their former positions (Article 10/1). Moreover, the working procedures shall be determined by the Prime Minister (Article 13/1).

In summary, the emergency decree law no.685 aims not to restore the ruin of the victims and the violation of the human rights but to conceal on that. The recent decree law mainly aims to extend the period of applications which will be lodged with the European Court of Human Rights as well as to mislead (deceive) the Court. As widely known, the ECHR settles the issues by the way of an “independent commission” in cases of seriously violated human rights where it applies the ‘pilot case’ procedure. For example, the ‘Damage Determination Commissions’, established in provinces under the law no.5233 entered into force in 2004, were just kind of this. However, that commission also included a representative of the bar, the head of agriculture in the province, vet and also the representative of the foundation of the human rights. It is obvious that the commission established under the recent emergency decree law no.685 doesn’t definetely resemble to that commission established under the law no.5233 in 2004 as well as not to carry the principles of the independency and the impartiality.

Accordingly, the commission established under the emergency decree law no.685 can not resolve the huge and serious human rights violations, but only keep the victims busy.