Violation Of Freedom Of Expression And The Right To Organize Meetings And Demonstrations Due To Decisions To Postpone The Announcement Of Judgments
Events
The applicants were sentenced to imprisonment or fines for expressing their opinions in various ways or for their actions at meetings and demonstrations they attended, but were placed under supervision for five years with a suspended sentence (HAGB).
Allegations
The applicants claimed that the HAGB decisions issued against them for various crimes violated their freedom of expression and their right to organize meetings and demonstrations.
The Court’s Assessment
The Constitutional Court has previously ruled in numerous decisions that HAGB decisions and the imposed supervision periods for various expressions of opinion constitute interference with and violation of certain fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the right to freedom of expression or press freedom, or the right to organize meetings and demonstrations.
In specific applications, it has been accepted that HAGB decisions, which were issued as a result of actions contrary to various guarantees of the right to a fair trial, primarily the equality of arms, the right to defense, the right to legal counsel, and the right to a reasoned decision, interfered with the applicants’ freedom of expression or their right to organize meetings and demonstrations. In this context, it is necessary to determine whether the interventions resulting from the HAGB decisions issued at the end of the separate trial processes against the applicants meet the criterion of legality.
The current legal regulations are insufficient to resolve the problems arising from the application of the HAGB institution; they cannot systematically eliminate the deterrent effect on the applicants’ various fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression and the right to organize meetings and demonstrations. Indeed, it is evident that neither the legal amendments made to the HAGB institution in Law No. 5271, nor the Supreme Court’s case law on the subject, nor the practices of the courts of first instance have been sufficient to eliminate the problems detailed in the decision.
It has been concluded that the legislation constituting the HAGB institution as a whole contains structural problems that lead to constant violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, primarily freedom of expression, and that it is not possible to eliminate these problems by means other than regulation by the legislature, such as through interpretations by judicial bodies. Under the current circumstances, the courts of first instance and the Court of Cassation have been unable to prevent the HAGB institution, which applies to all decisions subject to appeal, from violating the constitutional rights of the appellants protected by Articles 26 and 34 of the Constitution.
After all its evaluations, the Constitutional Court has concluded that the interventions arising from the application of the HAGB institution, which is the subject of the applications at hand, do not meet the legality criterion.
The Constitutional Court has ruled that freedom of expression and the right to organize meetings and demonstrations have been violated based on the stated reasons.
