For a public official, due to their duty...

The legal system has collapsed. There is no trust left in the judiciary. While those who express dissenting opinions suddenly find themselves in prison, individuals who extort people, loot their property, or go even further to cause serious injury are released without ever being arrested, or only after public outrage leads to “if you please” types of arrest warrants.  The justifications for the arrest warrants that are issued are interesting. 

There have been two attempted attacks on police officers in the last week. Let's take a look at the arrest decisions given in these two incidents. 

In the first incident, a young police officer, Şeyda Yılmaz, lost her life. The fact that the person who killed our young police officer was walking around freely despite having 26 different criminal records, and continued to commit crimes, is of no concern to our legal system or our public order system. As a result of a heap of negligence, a young woman is no longer alive. However, the justification in the arrest warrant for the suspect accused of killing the police officer is surprising in terms of maintaining public order and the deterrent effect of crimes... I am quoting the decision from the newspapers:

 “Intentional killing of a public official due to their duty” arrested for the crime of...

What does “Intentional killing of a public official due to their duty”

mean? If the deceased were not a public official, would they have been released instead of arrested?

While the pain of our female police officer Şeyda Yılmaz was still fresh, another piece of news came right after from Cide, Kastamonu. A young man and his father were drifting in traffic and fled from a police stop signal. The police caught them after a pursuit. The suspects pulled a gun on the police, threatened them with death, and even assaulted them. The judge released them on judicial control conditions. Moreover, their criminal files and records are extensive...

 The prosecutor appealed. This time, another judge ordered their arrest. The arrest warrant does not state that the act committed is a crime. At the center of the decision is not the crime, but  who the act was directed against.

“For the crime of intentional injury resulting in bone fracture due to the public duty performed by the person...”

According to this statement in the arrest warrant, pulling a gun on any person, threatening them with death, assaulting them, or breaking their bones is not a crime. For this act to be a crime, the victims must be public officials. There is also “resulting in bone fracture” emphasis.

Here, the following question arises: “If a gun is pulled on a police officer and they are assaulted, if there is no bone fracture, will it not be grounds for arrest?” What does the judge mean by making this emphasis? 

It is precisely because of these emphases that those who seize people's property, assault others, extort their money and goods, cause serious injury, or kill people in traffic find courage. 

Do such decisions not mean that the most basic rights that should be under state protection are being removed from legal protection? If they are not a public official, go ahead and extort, assault, beat, injure, or kill... 

Am I exaggerating? Or is the problem just a matter of unqualified staff who have not received sufficient legal education and have limited ability to express themselves and write in Turkish?

INSULT DUE TO PUBLIC DUTY

Criticism directed at the President is considered an insult to the President. Insulting the President is unacceptable. But the President himself also insults his opponents and the public. Things get complicated when one is both the President and a party leader. Insulting the President is not the subject of this article. I want to touch upon “insulting a public official due to their duty” accusations.  

These “Due to public duty” laws and rulings must be among the most absurd laws or sanctions in the world.

A public official... For example, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek and the senior management of the Central Bank, or the Deputy Chairman of the BRSA who made headlines with his wedding last week... I don't know any of these people; I only know their names. I haven't even met them once. Why would I insult them out of the blue... In my column here, on the television channels I appear on, and on my own YouTube channel, I criticize these people I don't even know “because they are not performing their public duties well”for.  

For example, I find their diagnoses and efforts regarding inflation to be incomplete and wrong. By looking at the statistics announced by the state, the prices in the markets, and analyzing economic data, I write and explain that the policies they implement make the poor even poorer, destroy agriculture, and drag society into misery, all within the “discipline of economic science” And I express all of this in public channels, in my column here, on my YouTube channel, and in the television programs I participate in, as politely as possible without ever resorting to insults.

Furthermore, as a retiree, when I both feel and measure the loss of income I have experienced (real income loss for retirees has reached 80 percent), I use not-so-pleasant expressions for public officials I don't know but whose names I know in non-public settings.  Especially when walking around the markets, if you could hear what the public says and the curses they utter for these public officials they don't know but whose names they know, due to their public duties...

Let me give an example I do not approve of. Tens of thousands of people gathered in a stadium suddenly start insulting a referee they don't know at all, targeting his sexual identity and his family. I feel sorry for the referee and his family, but it is in the nature of this business for people in society to insult someone they don't know due to the public duty they have undertaken. 

People do not insult someone they don't know out of the blue. It is natural for them to criticize those who do not perform their public duties properly. If the public official changes their actions or is held accountable for misconduct as a result of these criticisms and dissatisfaction, the criticisms remain there. There is no problem; on the contrary, things improve.

But if public reactions are ignored, if the public official or the government does not care about the reactions and does as they please, and if those who abuse their duty cannot be held accountable before an independent judiciary, then criticism gives way to insults. As experienced people say when faced with events they cannot fix, “curse and relax” ... 

On this occasion, let me pose a question to experts in social psychology and sociology. “Is it possible that insults resulting from the ignoring of criticisms and reactions and/or the lack of accountability could actually reduce the reaction and prevent the triggering of social incidents?”

BRIBERY AND INFLUENCE PEDDLING DUE TO PUBLIC DUTY

You protect those who are insulted due to their public duty, but why do you ignore those who take bribes, engage in influence peddling, and acquire unjust wealth due to their public duty?

Bribery relationships that started in secret no longer even feel the need to be hidden or kept quiet. From Turgut Özal's understanding of “My civil servant knows their business” said for public officials struggling to make ends meet, things have reached the point of blatant“looting and extortion” at almost every level.

The latest example is also from last week... Extortion through influence peddling... 

When the Deputy Chairman of the BRSA got married, he invited the owners and managers of the banks and financial companies he audits “due to his public duty” to the wedding ceremony. A very long queue for gifts formed. According to one estimate, it is said that over 1 million dollars (around 35 million liras) worth of gifts were given. Even if judges do not decide whether this is a gift or “extortion due to public duty,” the public conscience will decide. Let us recall that a similar event was carried out by Ali Babacan, who held his son's circumcision ceremony at the Sports Exhibition Palace during his time as the Minister of State for the Economy.

COMPENSATION LAWSUITS DUE TO PUBLIC DUTY

I want to share a comment from a dear friend of mine regarding compensation lawsuits that will catch everyone off guard and with which I strongly agree. Raif Şaşmaz. Doğru Party İzmir Provincial Chairman... I am quoting what he said:

“Compensation payment decisions are issued as a result of lawsuits for insulting the President. The person who loses the case pays the money into the President's private account. However, the insult lawsuit was not filed against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an individual... It was filed as an insult to the President. In this case, the payment should be made to the Treasury on behalf of the Presidency, not to the individual.”

Similarly, with a law passed before the conspiracy cases, judges were saved from compensation lawsuits due to the decisions they made. If judges make “erroneous decisions due to their public duties” and victimize a person, the compensation payments to be made to the victim are covered by the Treasury. As in many Constitutional Court and ECHR decisions... But if they are “insulted due to their public duties,” the resulting compensation goes to a personal account...  Why?

AUTHORITARIANISM IS BEING BUILT WITH THE INTERPRETATION OF PUBLIC OFFICIAL

They started with insulting a public official due to their duty, and in arrests, they went as far as ignoring that the victim is a human being and requiring the condition of being a public official. They have deactivated being human in the victim of the crime. Statistical data also shows that prisons are overflowing with criminals, and gangs and criminals are running rampant on the streets. 

Despite the increased public order expenditures in the budget, the AKP government cannot maintain public order; the increased expenditures are being used to establish a more authoritarian regime. We will address this side of the issue in another article.