Inflation lawsuit against TURKSTAT concluded: Court issues rejection

A lawsuit questioning the accuracy of TURKSTAT's inflation data had been filed by retired Court of Cassation member Seyfettin Çilesiz. In this case, the Ankara 6th Administrative Court had requested documents from TURKSTAT regarding the calculation of inflation rates for the first half of 2024. TURKSTAT submitted the documents to the court on an encrypted flash drive and stated that the documents were original works.

DETAILS OF THE COURT DECISION

The court decided to reject the case with a two-to-one vote. The dissenting member stated that they did not agree with the reasoning for the rejection. In its decision, the court noted that the plaintiff's old-age pension increase was directly affected and that there was therefore a personal interest relationship between the plaintiff and the subject of the lawsuit. However, TURKSTAT's defense that it was not influential in the determination of raises was not accepted.

In the decision, it was concluded that it was legally impossible to ensure the necessary data integrity in the lawsuit filed with the claim that the inflation rate for the first six months of 2024 did not reflect the truth. Therefore, the request for the cancellation of the transaction subject to the lawsuit was rejected.

LAWYER'S VIEW

The plaintiff's lawyer, Ali Erdem Gündoğan, stated that TURKSTAT did not submit some data to the court by characterizing it as confidential and original work. Gündoğan said that the court accepted TURKSTAT's data as correct because it could not reach data integrity and rejected the case. However, he stated that the reasoned decision rejected TURKSTAT's claims and was written in favor of the retiree, and that the rejection decision was only given in the conclusion section.

It was reported that the decision would be appealed to a higher court.

News Source: 12punto