Court scraps jail penalty in political parties law
ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency
The Constitutional Court has annulled a clause in the law on the regulation of political parties (SPK) that proscribed at least six months in prison for a number of outlawed activities.The tribunal, which handled the issue upon an application from a first instance court in the eastern town of Özalp, decided that the cancellation would take effect six months after its publication in the Official Gazette, leaving time for Parliament to legislate a possible replacement provision. It was not immediately clear on what grounds the clause in Article 117 of the SPK was scrapped. The penalty envisaged in Article 117 pertained to breaches of bans related to party objectives and activities. The deputy group chair of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Emine Ülker Tarhan, said the ruling had now left a void in the penalty for those who commit the said breaches. “The Constitutional Court has made a decision that draws up the format of the new charter.”
