Turkey’s state of council overturns decision approving policeman’s dismissal after relationship with ‘loose woman’

Dinçer Gökçe - ARTVİN

The Turkish State of Council overturned a local court’s decision dismissing a police officer due to his relationship with whom the General Directorate of Security identified as a “loose woman,” paving the way for the policeman to be reinstated back to his job after four years.

The incident arose four years ago when a police officer known only by initials D.E., on duty in the Black Sea province of Artvin’s Şavşat District Police Department, reportedly had a relationship between Dec. 2011 and Feb. 2012 with a woman known by the initials D.G. Both of them were single and unmarried at the time. In Feb. 2012, the couple broke up after consensual agreement.

Five months after their break-up, a denunciation arrived at the Artvin Governor’s Office. “There is a police officer at Şavşat Police Station, with the name of D. He sleeps around. He had a child from a woman named D., who had the child aborted. He goes to her home with the police car at nights. He stays there for two to three hours and then leaves [her] home. I want this to be investigated,” it said.

The denunciation was made by a man known by the initials N.Ç., who D.G. said in her testimony that he was married with children but was harassing her for a long time and had made the denunciation as she did not reciprocate his interest in her. 

The General Directorate of Security then assigned an inspector to look into D.E.’s denunciation. The inspector went to Şavşat and took testimonies from D.E. and D.G. as well as many others living in the district. The former couple told the inspector in their testimonies that they were together for a period of three months by their own will and had again broken up by consensual agreement. “I do not have information regarding his personal life. I have not seen or heard a socially or morally negative situation regarding him,” D.E.’s two colleagues reportedly told the inspector.

Citing the police forces’ disciplinary code of conduct, which says, “To live or to form a relationship like husband and wife with women or men known to be ‘loose’ in their environment,” the authorities ruled for the dismissal of D.E. from his job on May 29, 2013, despite the testimonies.

Following the decision of the dismissal, the dismissed police officer D.E. filed a lawsuit to the administrative court for the annulment of the decision, but the Istanbul Fourth Administrative Court dismissed D.E.’s request, saying the authorities’ decision was in line with the law. 

This time, D.E. took the case to the State of Council whose 12th Department approved the Istanbul Administrative Court’s decision. D.E., as a last resort, requested that the 12th Department’s decision be revised, as a result of which the State of Council’s Fifth Department overturned the Istanbul Administrative Court’s ruling, paving the way for D.E. to be reinstated to his job four years later. 

“Although the existence of the complainant’s relationship with the woman, D.G., is beyond dispute, there is no concrete information or declaration indicating that the mentioned woman was known as ‘loose’ in the specified period,” the Fifth Department said in its ruling.

“The relationship between my client and the woman named D.G. has completely been experienced between two adults by their own free will and has been concluded as such. The penalty of the job dismissal was very harsh,” said D.E.’s lawyer İmam Bazan, following the ruling.