The Constitutional Court deemed the penalty imposed for participating in an unauthorized press conference as a violation of rights.

Education and Science Workers' Union (Eğitim-Sen) Tunceli Branch member Cafer Sevgül attended the press release organized by KESK Tunceli Branch Platform on 30 October 2016.

The applicant was given an administrative fine of 219 TL on the grounds that he violated the decision of the Tunceli Governorship requiring permission for press releases and similar events to be held throughout the province during the state of emergency (OHAL).

Sevgül's request for the removal of the administrative fine was rejected by the Criminal Judgeship of Peace. Following the final decision, Sevgül made an individual application to the Constitutional Court, alleging that "her right to organize meetings and demonstrations was violated due to being punished with an administrative fine for participating in a press conference held without permission."

The Supreme Court ruled that Cafer Sevgül's right to organize meetings and demonstrations was violated and decided to send the decision to the Tunceli Criminal Court of Peace for a retrial in order to eliminate the consequences of the violation.

"THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY TO KNOW IF THEY COMPLY WITH THE LEGAL CONDITIONS"

It was stated that the Constitutional Court examined the intervention regarding the imposition of administrative fines on the participants for participating in the press release subject to the application, whose events and facts were of the same nature as the concrete application, in the decision of Hüseyin Karabulut et al.

In the justification, it was reminded that in the aforementioned decision, referring to the Selma Elma decision, it was stated that it would be incompatible with the requirements of the democratic social order for participants to be subjected to sanctions just because they attended the meeting, who did not know or did not have the opportunity to know whether the meeting was organized in accordance with the legal conditions or not.

"INTERVENTION IS CONTRARY TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIAL ORDER"

It was also stated that the Constitutional Court concluded that the intervention was not in line with the requirements of the democratic social order, considering that the press release subject to the application ended peacefully, that there was no determination that public order was disrupted in the minutes of the administration or the decisions of the judicial authorities, and that the applicants were not in a position to organize or manage the meeting.

In the justification, "It has been understood that the press conference attended by the applicant in the incident subject to the application was held peacefully and that there is no determination that the applicant was one of the people who organized or managed the event. Therefore, it has been concluded that there is no reason to deviate from the principles and evaluations in the Hüseyin Karabulut and others decision and the conclusion reached in terms of the conditions of the application at hand. When evaluated together with Article 15 of the Constitution for the explained reasons, the meeting and demonstration guaranteed in Article 34 of the Constitution "It must be decided that the right to organize the march has been violated," it said.