Scandalous ruling - letter from Pinar Selek Support Committee
Wanneer: 23/11/2012 - 17:44
"The latest hearing about the completion of procedural deficiencies in the ancillary cases that were consolidated with the “Spice Bazaar” case where sociologist-writer Pinar Selek had been acquitted three times witnessed a scandalous ruling. On Thursday, November 22, the Istanbul 12th High Criminal Court has revoked the final ruling of acquittal of Pinar Selek that it had given on February 9, 2011, despite having no such authority."
Below a letter from Pinar Selek Support Committee:
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Dear friends,
Since the court dared to took it's acquittal decision back (which we think that never happened in any case all around the world), Pinar Selek case has reached to such a point that we can not thrust there will be a fair trial. So we do urge you to make your own press statements telling your concerns on the case. We also kindly ask you to come to Istanbul to observe Pinar's next trial which will be held on 13th of December, 2012. We only have 20 days before the trial. So any of your contribution will be vital. If any of you make a press statement, please do share it witt us.
Here is our press statement on the last hearing. We do hope that you can come to the court to support justice. Please keep in touch.
In solidarity,
Yasemin Öz
International Spokesperson of Pinar Selek Support Committee
Scandalous ruling unprecedented in the world’s history of law
The latest hearing about the completion of procedural deficiencies in the ancillary cases that were consolidated with the “Spice Bazaar” case where sociologist-writer Pinar Selek had been acquitted three times witnessed a scandalous ruling. On Thursday, November 22, the Istanbul 12th High Criminal Court has revoked the final ruling of acquittal of Pinar Selek that it had given on February 9, 2011, despite having no such authority.
For the first time not only in the history of the Turkish law but in the world, a court has scandalously ignored its own ruling of acquittal that it had given resisting to the Supreme Court’s reversal.
The law is overtly being violated
This interim ruling which shocked the lawyers as well as the big crowd that was watching the case and which cannot be procedurally put on the agenda amounts to the clear and overt violation of the Turkish Criminal Procedures Act (CMK). According to the CMK, acquittal is not an interim ruling, but a final one, a judgment. It can only be appealed before the Supreme Court. A ruling that a court has decided on gets out of its jurisdiction and enters that of the Supreme Court. In the Pinar Selek case, the court, by withdrawing its ruling of acquittal, has substituted itself for the Supreme Court and put its own ruling to appellate review.
On with the void rulings
As one may recall, the “Spice Bazaar” case was supposed to go to the Supreme Court Assembly for Criminal Matters (YCGK) due to the appeal of the Prosecution office. However, because the other consolidated cases have not ended yet, the case was being delayed. In other words, first the void opinion given by the Prosecution on a case that was long supposed to be at the Supreme Court Assembly for Criminal Matters, and now the acquittal that the court has withdrawn with an interim ruling despite not having the authority show that the relentless violation of the law in this court case has become a recurrent, conscious strategy.
A conscious and elaborate operation
The court has given the interim ruling in question on the file at an environment where the Prosecutor was present but the lawyers were kept outside the courtroom throughout the hour and a half before the hearing started. The court has then issued this ruling which was given before the hearing without giving the floor to the lawyers during the hearing or presenting a justification. Moreover, this unjustified ruling of revoking the acquittal has been given by the temporary chief judge who does not know the case file and new court members after one year and nine months and five hearings at the very session where the actual chief judge was on leave.
At this point we have to ask: where do the makers of this chain of scandals take the nerve to act so recklessly in full view of the public? The answer to this question indicates a conscious and elaborate operation. The national and international public that has been demanding justice for the last fourteen years on behalf of Pinar Selek is aware of this big plot and will break the plot.
Let’s break this plot altogether at the hearing that will take place on December 13, 2012 Thursday at 2 pm!
The “We Are Still Witnesses” Platform
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(http://www.pinarselek.com/public/page.aspx?id=241)