New Criminal Law Flares up a New Dispute

There is fear that in the event of the draft’s acceptance in its current form, the efforts towards democratising at the basis of the adaptation packages necessary to get entry into the EU will be put at risk . The removal of "cebir" (the concept of the use of force in Turkish Criminal Law’s 146th article related to the Infringement of the Constitutional Order particularly its punishment being ‘heavy life sentence’) is criticized intensively in jurisprudence areas.

Criminal jurists and lawyers emphasize that with the word ‘cebir’ ‘s removal, the article has become open to comments, and the implementation area has been expanded to limit expression and freedom of organization freedom. They say that in the event of legalization of the draft, the 141st, 142nd, and 163rd articles- abolished years ago- would become able to be implemented again. Assoc. Prof. Ahmet Gokcen puts forward that in the prepared draft there is an "authoritative" approach, and says that the alteration in the 146th article of TCK clearly indicates an anti-democratic comprehension.

The head of the commis sion responsible for preparing the draft, Prof. Sulhi Donmezer, considers the criticisms ‘pointless’.

According to the article in the implementation, those violating constitutional order or abolishment of it through usage of force are punished with prison life sentence. If there is no compulsion trace, that is if the person charged with attempting to violate against the order didn’t use any force, the article is not operated. However, according to the new assumption brought to the draft even if he didn’t use "compulsion", those attempting to infringe the constitutional order are to be punished with life sentence punishment in the same way.

Murat Aydin / Ankara / TURKEY