The Ankara DA in charge of parliamentary misconduct served warrants to the office of the Speaker of the Grand Assembly seeking the revocation of legislative immunity for seven deputies, including one from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Currently, there are over 700 such warrants, targeting all 52 deputies of the Kurdish equality party DEM, and several CHP deputies. Unless urged by President Erdogan, the Speaker of the Grand Assembly, Mr Numan Kurtulmus (AKP) tables these requests.
The lawmakers targeted by the new warrants include CHP Istanbul Deputy Gökan Zeybek, İYİ (Good) Party Istanbul Deputy Burak Akburak, independent Istanbul Deputy Cemal Enginyurt and Ankara Deputy Yüksel Arslan.
The remaining three are the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) deputies Cengiz Çandar, Salihe Aydeniz and Sabahat Erdoğan Sarıtaş.
The parliament speaker referred the motions to a joint commission, composed of members from the Constitution and Justice committees.
Following deliberations in the joint commission, a preparatory subcommittee comprised of representatives from political parties will be constituted to examine the motions in detail, where needless to say AKP and MHP have a majority.
The report drafted by the preparatory subcommittee will subsequently be submitted to the joint commission for approval. If endorsed, the motions will advance to the parliament’s general assembly for final deliberation. A simple majority vote in the general assembly will suffice to strip the deputy of their legislative immunity.
A deputy whose legislative immunity is lifted will be able to continue his legislative activities if he is not arrested. In the past all deputies without immunity have been arrested for charges related to terror. The most notorious example is former HDP (predecessor to DEM) chairman Mr Salahaddin Demirtas, who has been in prions despite rulings by Turkey’s Constitutional Corut and ECofHR that he is innocent.
It is not clear when Erdogan would instruct the Speaker to activate these probes, but they serve as leverage to intimidate opposition parties.
Follow our English language YouTube videos @ REAL TURKEY: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKpFJB4GFiNkhmpVZQ_d9Rg
And content at Twitter: @AtillaEng
Facebook: Real Turkey Channel: https://www.facebook.com/realturkeychannel/