Events
According to the hearing report of the case in which the five defendants were defending, the applicant, who is a lawyer, told the Public Prosecutor after completing his opinion on the merits, “We request time to prepare our defenses against the opinion, but I do not accept the opinion, the prosecutor should re-read the Faculty of Law, he did not read the Faculty of Law, either he did not read the file or It does not base or evaluate the works of the court, we repeat our previous requests for eviction, I demand the release of my client, [SY’s] statement needs to be evaluated, besides, the action taken on this issue can be asked in the file related to [SY], the proceedings at the court stage cannot be taken into account. If they have no value, then what’s the point of doing them? I request that the court evaluate and decide accordingly, taking into account the proceedings in the court.” has spoken words.
Due to the applicant’s words to the public prosecutor, the court decided to notify the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office for the offenses of insulting the officer in charge due to his duty, targeting terrorist organizations and influencing the fair trial.
On the day of the hearing, in the minutes taken by some lawyers who were the lawyers of other defendants in the same case, it was stated that “The prosecutor should read the Faculty of Law again, he did not study the Faculty of Law.” It was stated that he did not make a statement such as “…he graduated from Istanbul Law Faculty, the prosecutor does not know which faculty he graduated from…”. The applicant also objected to the report on the same grounds the day after the hearing.
After the necessary procedures were completed for the applicant to be prosecuted, an indictment was drawn up by the Beyoğlu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office for the applicant to be punished for the crime of insult.
As a result of the trial, it was accepted that the applicant had insulted a public official because of his duty, with his words “…Let the Prosecutor read the Faculty of Law again, he did not read the Faculty of Law…”. For this reason, it was decided that the applicant would be punished with a judicial fine of 304 days (6,080 TL), but the announcement of the verdict was deferred. The appeal against the decision was rejected.
Within the scope of Law No. 6008 and dated 22/7/2010, which came into force after the date of the decision, the applicant’s lawyers requested the revocation of the decision to postpone the announcement of the verdict, and the court reversed the decision and opened a hearing.
As a result of the trial, it was determined that there was no hesitation or contradiction about the fact that the applicant had said some words targeting the public prosecutor’s person, and that the difference between the claim and the defense was related to the content of the words; It has been concluded that the issue of whether the public prosecutor has studied law school is not related to the works and actions of the individuals, but to the targeting of the persons of the persons. For the aforementioned reasons, it was decided to punish the applicant with a judicial fine of 304 days (6,080 TL), considering that the application of postponing the announcement of the verdict was not accepted by the applicant and his lawyers. In its reasoned decision, the court also made a determination that the atmosphere was tense during the hearing, when it was alleged that the words that were the subject of the crime were spoken.
The decision was upheld by the Supreme Court and became final. The applicant’s request for an appeal was rejected by the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation.
Claims of the Applicant
the applicant; He claims that his right to a fair trial has been violated because the defense witnesses are not heard, the contradictions between the minutes are not resolved, the provisions of the law are not applied and the fundamental claims are not met in the court decisions. The application further argued that his freedom of expression had been violated since he had been sentenced for his statements during the hearing.
Court’s Evaluation
Within the scope of this claim, the Constitutional Court made the following evaluations in summary:
The applicant, who was a lawyer in the incident that was the subject of the application, was punished with a judicial fine for some of his words to the public prosecutor during the hearing. There is a dispute about the content of the words. In the present application, the Constitutional Court does not find it necessary to evaluate the acceptance of the instance courts regarding the facts of the case. For this reason, in the present application, it will only be evaluated whether the words used by the applicant, as accepted by the courts of instance, are under the protection of freedom of expression.
The words that led to the punishment of the applicant were made during the practice of the profession of attorney at the time of the hearing. In the concrete case, interferences with the freedom of expression of the applicant, who is acting as a defense attorney, may be considered necessary in very exceptional circumstances in a democratic society. Because the principle of equality of arms and the fairness of the trial